Chapter Twelve: Escape Plans and Guinea Pigs

"Please…" He pleaded again, holding a hand out to block any movement I might have made towards him.

With an oddly sharp pang in my chest, I understood.

Frozen in the spot, I observed him with caution. Vampires were little more than predatory animals at our most basic levels. We didn't do well backed into corners. I wouldn't put it past him to spring at me the second I disregarded his requests. "Please don't come any closer."

"I…" I swallowed tightly, but kept my hands firmly clasped in front of my stomach. In the back of my mind, I wondered if he observed my appearance to be as wrecked and ruined as his. ""I'm not going to hurt you, Alec. You know that. We're going to get out of here."

Nevertheless, he didn't relent. It was as though he had been caught between pushing something away and reaching out towards some unseen desire. No one had come down to check on the noise I'd made by breaking down the wall. Either Aro had gone from the castle, or he had wrapped himself up in his other priorities and forgot we even existed at all.

That made sense. Audrey and her monstrous flock were all perfectly capable of dishing out punishments on their own.

Against my better judgment, I took a miniscule step towards him. Were it not for our heightened senses, he wouldn't have detected that I'd moved at all.

"Saoirse…." He hissed, lurching forward in synchronicity with my step. "Stay there. Please. Just….just don't come any closer."

For now, I complied. "I'm not going to touch you." How could I? He looked as though he might either rip me to shreds or fall apart at a meager amount of contact. "I won't hurt you. I promise."

My words might as well have been spoken into the void. I couldn't blame him. I would have been the same way, had they done what they did to him, to me.

"I-I know that," He replied, and slowly, his hand fell back down to his side. I couldn't determine whether or not he finally understood that my words were honest, or if he had just given up entirely. "In my head, I know that."

I hadn't noticed how much he trembled when he spoke. Why would Audrey have gone to Bosnia at a time like this? Hadn't she wanted to see him break?

No. A softer, but still resilient and demanding voice hissed in the back of my mind. He's not broken. Don't you dare think of him like that.

In my life, I managed to avoid a great deal of interaction with the Volturi- in spite of my blatant disregard to their rules- but I knew that the guard held an insurmountable level of pride in themselves. They were the pinnacle or organization, of control, and if their leader wasn't a megalomaniac with a power-complex, who involved sociopaths and narcissists in his grand design, then the Volturi might have had the chance to do something worthwhile.

"Do you still want to go to Bosnia?" I entreated. Hadn't that been the main reason for our sudden need to escape? I could have lived with a few more rounds with Tamsin. She was a mouse compared to Audrey. Though, if my luck came at the cost of his twin dying in Audrey's horrific grasp, then I couldn't truly consider myself lucky.

We had greater priorities to focus on- more so than our own bitter suffering.

He froze up for a couple of seconds, but his eyes flicked back and forth, as if he had to debate with something unseen in order to make that decision. "Yeah. Yes. Yes, we need to go."

"Audrey's gone, right?" I reminded him. He snorted.

"Funny." He grimaced, stepping past me and towards the entrance to the cell. "The first time I'd actually like to have her here, she's across the Adriatic Sea."

"Bosnia isn't that far away." I said, hoping that the idea that we could get to her in time would bring some sort of relief to him. "Only a four hour plane flight… Maybe a little longer if we run…."

"I doubt either of us could handle a commercial flight." He turned, leaning back against the wall next to the door. "We'd slaughter all of the passengers and leave a blood trail ten-thousand miles long."

I shrugged. "We can already assume that Aro knows you'd be going to Bosnia. Unless Tamsin just came down here to brag on her own accord."

"Do you think they'll ambush us?" His eyes flared wider, and in the darkness of the cell, I could have sworn he'd somehow managed to get paler than before. Impossible, true, but still…it's what I saw.

I took a step forward, closing nothing more than a foot of space in the six feet that separated us. If the cell were bigger, I would have been happy to give him all of the room that he needed. "I don't know, but we're going to Bosnia. As long as Audrey isn't around, you can handle anyone."

"Can I?" He asked, arms folded over his chest, legs crossed on a certain way to try and keep himself covered. "Aro never felt the need to train me in combat, remember. My powers aren't as useful as they used to be. New vampires….with newer powers are turning up all of the time. Any kind of shield...any ability that can deflect the kind of gift that I have- or that Jane has, and we're fucked."

I thought for a moment, "Didn't you say there was a shield that you faced off against years ago? With the hybrid issue."

Eyebrow raised, his blank expression melted away for a second and he looked at me as though I had suddenly grown eleven heads. "There is no way in absolute hell I'm asking the Cullens for help. I have a shred of dignity left in me, Saoirse."

"I don't think asking someone for help is going to throw your dignity out of the window, Alec." I pointed out, but it gave me a sense of relief to know that he still carried some amount of pride in himself. "But… if they'd be able to help, don't you think it's worth letting go a bit of my pride?"

He scoffed, shaking his head. "My pride is so low that I fear letting go of any amount with leave me with hardly any at all."

"I don't believe that asking for help truly relinquishes any amount of pride." I answered, leaning back against the wall, next to the hole I'd created. "I don't know if we're going to be able to do this alone. We can handle Tamsin and the others so long as Audrey isn't around- but we need someone who is able to deflect her abilities. From what I've heard, this Cullen girl might be the only one who could stand."

"Even if Cullen is able to make Audrey's gifts ineffective, we still have to worry about her physical combat skills." He informed. I raised a brow.

"If Aro didn't see a reason to train you and Jane in combat, then why would he bother with someone like Audrey?"

"The Volturi isn't the first Coven Audrey's been a part of," He replied, "She was created by another coven, but from what we know of her past- and what Aro's told us, she didn't exactly agree with their rules. They were too tame."

"They could burn their victims alive and gut them and Audrey would still consider them to be too tame." I scoffed, glancing over my shoulder. Some shadow had fallen over the door to my currently-abandoned cell, but moments later, it vanished. Thinking little of it, I turned back to him. "Did this coven give her some kind of battle-training?"

"According to her thoughts, yes. They were one of the many covens who tried to make an army of newborns. Apparently, Audrey was a vicious little bitch as a human, and the leaders of the Coven believed that she'd be an amazing warrior."

"You have an awful lot of information on her," I mused. In the back of my head, I wondered if all of Audrey's claims that her attacks weren't personal were a lie. Maybe they were connected, and she wouldn't admit that she had the ability to be fueled by any kind of emotion.

"She's been in the coven for over a hundred years." Alec answered, glancing at me out of the corner of his eyes. "We all learn things about one another, living and working together, even if we might not want to."

"If you say so." I murmured, tucking a bit of hair behind my ears. Out of the corner of my eyes, I could see the shadow at the door again, but the instance I turned around, it had vanished. A trick of the lighting, I decided, or a trick of my mind. "Have you any ideas to get us out of here?"

He laughed. It held no humor. Any amount of joy that he might have held onto had vanished the moment those men came into his cell.

"No." He answered, his mouth curved into a sardonic smile. "I told you before that there's no getting out of here. All of these plans you're coming up with are futile."

I felt my hands curl into fists. I didn't want to get angry with him, but I could feel a heat rise in my throat and my stomach warp inside of me. Nothing happened, outwardly, though. My face couldn't go red with fury.

"They're not futile." I hissed. "We're getting out of here, or we'll be killed trying. I don't care. But I am not going to spend the rest of my existence waiting for some madman to decide when he is tired of me. Do you not want to see your sister again?"

He took a step closer to me, fire ablaze in his eyes. Even if it was directed towards me, I trembled with delight that he had, at least for a moment, woken up from his numbed stupor.

"Don't you dare ask me something so stupid again." He snarled. His hand twitched at his side, itching to wrap around my neck. "You know that I do."

"Then let's get the fuck out of here." I reached forward, taking the hand that had craved to throttle me, threading my fingers between his. "I'm on your side. Don't you get that?"

For a few seconds, he just stared at our intertwined fingers. "I have no ideas that wouldn't get us killed." He said, his tone dead again. "If you come up with anything that has the slightest chance to work, let me know."

"If Audrey is in Bosnia, I don't understand why you can't just use your gift on the other guards? Just knock them out- for fuck's sake." I rolled my eyes, flopping back against the wall.

"Its not that simple."

"What the fuck isn't that simple about it?" I hissed, drawing my knees up to my chest. "With Audrey out of the picture, you're one of the most powerful vampires I've ever come across."

For the longest time, he said nothing. He tore his hand away from mine and stared at me with a cold, hard glare. "I can't."

I raised a brow. "You can't what?"

"I can't use my power." He answered after another, shorter silence. "I've tried. But… it dissipates before it hits anyone."

A shiver ran down my spine as every idea I'd had before ran out of my mind. "Are you sure?"

"I tried to knock out Tamsin when she came in to tell us about Audrey." He said, jaw clenched. "Nothing. It didn't even cut off one of her senses."

"You...you can't even make them go deaf? Blind?" I asked, staring up at him. His ability was the central part to all of my escape plans. Without it, I had nothing. My hands trembled as my tongue slid across my lips and I wracked my brain for something. Then, I caught his eyes again and forced my hands to steady. "We just have to get your strength back up."

"And how, my dear, do you plan on doing that?" He demanded, head cocked to the side. "No access to blood. Any other brilliant ideas, Saoirse?"

He spoke my name like a poison.

"You're just tired. Once you've had time to rest, maybe your strength will come back to you."

"No." He cut in, "I don't think it works like that. We've never needed to sleep, so rest isn't going to do anything. I doubt you'd be able to use a gift, too- if you had one, of course."

I blinked. Surely, I had brought it up with him before now. "I do have a gift."

His eyes narrowed. "You have a gift."

"The level of shock in your tone is a tad insulting." I sighed, pushing myself up. "I don't use it a lot. Not nowadays at least. When I was with the rebellion that got me in this place, I used it a fair deal."

"Is it useful?"

A low, short laugh left my mouth. "All powers are useful if used in the right way. With Audrey gone…. I suppose it could be of use to us. Then again, I haven't tested it."

"Then try it." He gestured towards himself. "Test it."

Immediately, I shook my head, withdrawing with a step back. "I'm not using you as a guinea pig."

"Does your gift affect people?" He questioned. I gave a quick nod. "Then you need to try it on a person."

"You don't know what my gift is, Alec. Do you really want to be a test subject?"

"Are you going to hurt me?" He asked, watching my expression with care. "I have no reason to think you'll misuse your gifts, Saoirse."

I sucked in a long breath. "Alright, fine. I'll try it, but have to do one thing for me, too."

"I'll try."

"You try to get your gift back with me. I'll make you a test subject if you do the same with me."

He raised a brow, his lips curled into a tight smile. "Very well. Now, before I get myself in too deep- care to tell me what you gifts entail?"

"It's a type of mind control." I explained, and when he flinched, I hurried up my explanation. "I implant seeds into the mind... . I can't directly control someone, but I can alter feelings, memories, things like that to make them do what I want. Like… if I wanted someone to kill another, I could implant feelings of rage, memories of betrayal...anything to make them snap."

"I bet that came in handy with the rebel group you were with." He mused.

"Some of the time." I shrugged. "Our leader gave us all rolls. I did my job, used my gift, when it was needed. Now." I adjusted my stance, focusing my attention on the action I wanted him to perform. "You ready?"

He braced himself, but nodded. Seconds later, he turned instantly, and picked up a bit of stone that had fallen onto the ground, and hurled it at the wall behind him.

"Good." I grinned. "I can at least do a few things. Now it's your turn." I gestured to myself. "Hit me.

Eyes closed, he held his hands up as a thin, shimmering mist, mixed with black smoke started to creep towards me.

Holding myself steady, I waited for the vapor to consume me.