Secret Beneath the Roses 14: The rose is entombed in time

A/N: This story is definitely turning out longer than I expected it to. It was supposed to end on chapter fifteen, but I still have too much material to write. We're looking at roughly six more chapters before we reach a conclusive end.

"Alice, what does the outcome of this battle look like?"

The Volturi leaders, Aro, Caius, and Marcus were standing around a stone table with a map of Rome spread out on it. Other vital Volturi members Jane, Sulpicia, and Alec also were present, but stood further back from the table, arms crossed over their chests and faces impassive as they listened in to the meeting. Alice was the only one who was allowed to stand next to the trio, but she didn't find this an honor. In fact, she'd rather be as far away as possible from these frightening and unsettling men, but there was no where she could hide from the Volturi in the the Volturi's own home.

It had been five years since she had been included into the Volturi yet it felt like centuries had passed, her heart aching to be reunited with her friends and family, and Rosalie most importantly. There wasn't a single day that she didn't miss them with a terrible ferocity. She was allowed no contact with them, and was reduced to hoping that they were okay and that the Volturi would do them no harm. The only comfort she had was in her visions. Sometimes she had seen them in her visions, and she knew that they were okay. She had seen Edward propose to Bella and knew the girl had accepted. She had seen Carlisle and Esme moping around the house. She had seen Rosalie working away hard on her cars, trying to forget about Alice. Often times the pixie had seen Rosalie behaving violently, trying to go on a rescue mission but this was shut down by the other Cullen's and she was placated until the next time she'd get a crazy idea into her head. It would cheer Alice up, to see that Rosalie still wanted to fight for her even though the odds were stacked against her drastically. Yet, she was very fearful for the blonde, loathing the idea that one day the other Cullen's wouldn't catch onto her plans and she would go and try to face the Volturi by herself, getting herself killed.

When Alice had first joined, she had been miserable twenty four seven. Her emotions had ranged from anger to depression to feeling so empty that she contemplated jumping into a pit of fire at times, coming close frighteningly so to doing it. But only her hope for being reunited with her family and Rosalie kept her sane. It wouldn't be fair of her to kill herself and lead Rosalie to suffer with the remains of the broken bond. She wouldn't be behaving any better than the blonde had all those years ago.

Alice had also been a terrible flight risk for those early years and so she hadn't been let outside. That meant she couldn't hunt and her meals were left at the whims of the Volturi. Oh how they had mercilessly teased her for her diet. They had danced glasses of human blood under her nose, brought her unconscious but still living humans and she had to fight off the monster that crawled under her skin each and every time, but she had managed. She didn't touch a drop of human blood even as her stomach tore her apart internally, as venom swirled in her mouth and as her body ached intensely with the urge to sink her teeth in and to end this torment. Eventually Aro took pity on her after weeks of her not eating and watching her skin shrink, her eyes resemble skeletal sockets and seeing her weaken to the point of being unable to move. He had his guards hunt down some nearby animals from the vicinity and she feasted that night, throwing herself without caution upon the stray dogs they had caught for her. Sated and returning to a healthier state, she was able to glare angrily at those that had teased her with human blood, but they merely smirked at her predicament. From then on Aro made sure that she had a steady supply of animal blood delivered to her. That didn't make her hate him any less.

She had been forced to remove her civilian clothes and wear the damned red cloak of the Volturi. She felt like a true monster in it, dealing death to innocents around her, even though it wasn't her fault, and not her hand that had dealt the harm. Eventually, the anger, the despair, all her emotions had dimmed over the years, until she was a husk of her usual self. Gone was her chipper optimistic attitude, the bounce in her steps. All she could feel was emptiness and apathy, maybe the occasional contempt for the Volturi. She felt saddened that she was here. But it had been her own choice, no one elses. She had daftly wished that someone would come rescue her, that the Cullen's would come up with a plan, however, she knew it was impossible for them to rescue her and that the best idea was for them to stay away and be safe.

"Alice?" Aro asked delicately, watching her dead face. Alice glanced at him from the corner of her eye, never giving him the honor of looking straight into his eyes.

"Give me a moment. The visions do not always come easily," she said, explaining in a way one would to a child.

With a flash of motion, Caius, grabbed Alice by the hair of her head and jerked her head painful in his direction. "You will show respect when talking to Aro!" he growled, giving her short hair a painful tug. The dead expression on her face did not waver. She waited patiently for his little rant to finish but was saved by Aro. "Caius let her go. You're stalling the meeting. Let little Alice here do her job."

Caius growled again but let her go. "I'm keeping my eyes on you, animal blood sucker," he promised and Alice quickly ignored him, closing her eyes and trying to zone in. The seconds ticked by and she could feel the vampires around her growing impatient as they waited, shifting their feet and sighing. At last Alice felt the vision take a hold on her. There was chaos; screaming and sounds of slaughter mixing into a cacophony of discord. Battle was waged, vampire on vampire and in the end the three Volturi leaders stood triumphant, hands clutching the heads of their fallen opponents.

"You will be successful," Alice intoned, coming out of her vision. "Just follow the plans as you always did." The Volturi were planning on hunting down and decimating a group of rogue vampires outside the perimeters of their city, who wished to usurp the ancient leaders. They had struck the other group several times, but the rogues stubbornly remained a torn in the sides of the Volturi.

Aro seemed pleased by this information but Caius wasn't. "How do we know she isn't lying and that she won't lead us to our deaths?"

"Because if she lies, her family will be executed. We have guards on standby at all times in Forks, Washington, waiting for my order." Aro said this line as if he had said it a thousand times and was losing patience with reiterating it. This was because he had said it a thousand times, or even more possibly, Alice losing track of how many times they had gone through these same motions. She would have a vision, Caius would question her, Aro would reassure him and mention that her family was in danger if she lied. Over and over this cycle would conclude. Eventually Alice had become desensitized to it, or to the multiple death threats she had been given.

"I don't know," Caius grunted, rubbing his chin.

"What now?" Marcus huffed. Right on time, with the interjection, Alice noted bitterly. And now Caius is going to say, 'I'm still not sure.'

But his next question caught Alice off guard. It was something she was aware of, but that had not been addressed yet publically. "Her powers are waning. Her visions are becoming rarer and rarer, Aro."

Aro frowned at this, not at all happy that his favorite pet's powers were being brought into question. "We will discuss this later, Caius. Away from prying ears."

"No, you will not do this to me again!" Caius slammed the stone table hard with his fist, splitting it in half. "You do this every time I bring up the question and then we end up not talking about it at all!"

"I'd actually like to know too," Marcus added in, the usually silent man now speaking up more than he had in every other occasion Alice had seen him at. "Alice is an investment, and if she cannot provide then we have to fix that."

Aro looked extremely uncomfortable now and he tugged at the collar of his robe, glancing at the other Volturi behind him. Alice caught a smirk on Jane's lips. No question asked the blonde bitch was happy that Alice was getting grilled. The blonde had made it abundantly clear what she thought of vampires that didn't drink human blood. The hate was mutual, as Alice couldn't stomach the way the small girl took pleasure in torturing others. It was sick really. The two had been at odds since the first time they meet and they had had their fair share of fights, fights in which Alice was left crawling and mewling on the floor because of Jane's use of her gift. Aro had intervened when he saw Jane picking on Alice, but this only made the blonde more angry, angry that Aro favored the dark haired girl over her. Jane redoubled her efforts but always made sure the punishment took place out of Aro's jurisdiction. Over time Alice had learned to ignore Jane's barbs, and to toughen her skin against the pain, and soon the blonde had grown tired of insulting and hurting someone that didn't react. While Jane avoided her now, that didn't make the hatred between them any less noticeable.

"You are dismissed," Aro hissed at the members behind him and Jane, Sulpicia and Alec left, their cloaks billowing around them. Aro then addressed the other two members, his usually happy and childlike face scrunched up in a grimace. "Yes Alice's powers seem to be waning, so what?"

"This is not something we can dismiss," Caius said. "We only allowed her in because of her powers. If she loses them then we have no more need for her. While her powers have helped us a lot, there seems to be no more to gain from them any longer."

"I agree," Marcus added. "Aro either you find what's wrong with her gift, or you let her go."

Aro looked about ready to throw a tantrum, like when a child got his favorite toy taken away. "I'm sure it's just a fluke! She still owes us two more years!"

"Yes, she does. But if she cannot fulfill those requirements then let's ask for the rest of the two years in monetary weight."

Aro's mouth quivered and his nostrils flared. "There is nothing wrong with Alice! She so can do visions! They are not completely gone!"

Caius spread out his hands in an attempt to appease the man. "I'm not saying she cannot do visions, just that there is something wrong with how she can recall them. They are coming with more difficulty to her, and more rarely. It's possible that her gift has a limit and that we have exceeded that limit."

"Impossible!" Aro snarled. "There is no such thing as a limit on visions! No such thing!" He stomped his foot and Caius exchanged a look with Marcus. "Fine, have it your way, Aro. But I do not see improvement in her, than I am gong to throw her out myself if you do not do it yourself." With that promise, Caius and Marcus left, leaving Alice alone in the room with Aro.

The pixie contemplated what the men had discussed. It was true that her powers seemed to be waning. She was no longer able to have visions of her family and was now even having difficulty with seeing the future in people that lived in Rome itself. Her gift's radius of reach had fallen dramatically, and the amount of visions had fallen too. Before she could have as many as twenty visions a day, and probably more but she had never pushed it that far. Working for the Volturi had caused her to put more pressure on her gift, as they double checked with her every decision they made. And then on her alone times she had used her vision just to see her family. She would check up on the future of small decisions such as what would be Edward's next meal, or what would Esme do with the interior of the house. Most of her visions she had spent on Rosalie. In those moments she could almost imagine she was with the blonde again. Only that she was behind a glass wall and couldn't move or touch the blonde as she moved through the vision, doing whatever it was. Alice would spend so much time in her visions; they acted as a drug to her, leaving her vacant in her present world. Was this how drug addicts felt?

However, since Caius and Marcus were suggesting that her powers were fading, did that mean she could go home? Would she finally be free? A small kernel of hope grew in her dead chest. She made leave the room but Aro stopped her. "Alice," he hissed. Alice repressed a shudder. The man looked crazed now and she hoped he wouldn't take out his anger on her.

"What game are you playing at?" He demanded of her, coming close to her, enough that she could feel his cold breath on her face.

"Game?" she echoed slowly and dumbly.

"I know your powers are fine! Why are you hiding them? Do you want to go home so badly that you would lie about your gifts and risk your families life?"

This jolted Alice awake. "I'm not lying!" she spat back. "My gift has a limit and it has reached it! I can no longer provide you with the visions you want!"

"Bullshit!" Aro spat back, causing Alice to flinch back. "It's impossible for your gift to have a limit. Your brothers does not have one, and neither does Jane's or anyone elses in the Volturi!"

"Just because they don't have one, doesn't mean that mine won't have one. Every gift is different!" Alice was beginning to panic now. It sounded like the vampire was going to do something drastic.

"Aro, remain calm," Sulpicia's velvet voice cooed as she slide silently into the room.

"I told you to leave. Have you been eavesdropping this whole time?" he snarled, directing his anger at her. The woman did not flinch, only blinking her eyes calmly at him.

"Do you forget who you are speaking to? I am your wife Aro. Do not forget that." Sulpicia approached the two vampires and Aro shrunk a little as she placed a hand on his shoulder. "I sensed you were aggravated, and therefore I came to see what this is all about."

"I'm fine," Aro insisted. "This does not concern you, dear." He was trying to remain tough sounding but his anger had faded. It looked like Aro was afraid of his own wife. How amusing.

"Oh it does concern me," she softly hissed and her hold on his shoulder must have tightened because he stiffened and his eyebrows twisted in pain but he did not utter a sound. "I think her lack of power has something to do with her mate bond. Remember that that blonde vampire was her mate?" Aro nodded his head as he listened. "They've been separated for a while now, and you do know what happens to mated vampires who are separated for long periods of time?"

"They begin to lose themselves. They become quiet and withdrawn." Aro recited this information, something Sulpicia had probably tried to drill into his head.

"A slow metaphorical death. In the end they end up vegetative, as if they had their bond broken in the first place. And for those vampires that have gifts, they not only become quiet and withdrawn but lose their powers as well." Aro considered this, looking down at the floor as he thought.

"This is what Alice is going through and if we cure this issue, Alice can be back at a hundred percent capacity." Sulpicia let go of her husbands shoulder and he let out a sigh of relief. "Leave this in my hands, Aro and I will make sure this all works out."

The vampire was silent for a moment as he contemplated this. "Very well, Sulpicia. Do as you please." With a brief glance at Alice that she could not decipher, Aro left the room. Now it was only Sulpicia and Alice. Alice didn't know too much about Aro's mysterious wife except for what her powers did to other vampires. Alice had had the displeasure of watching the tall woman rip apart a soul mate bond right before her very eyes. It was dreadful.

"Do not fear, little Alice," Sulpicia said, her face looking awfully smug. "My husband seems to be currently infatuated with you and while I do not like that, I will not do anything to hurt his toys. After all he lets me keep mine." Sulpicia cupped Alice's chin at this, forcing the girl to look into her red eyes. "I know you greatly detest being here, and everyone detests your presence here as well. Therefore I will cut you a deal."

Alice felt a jolt pass through her chest. Sulpicia was going to help her out? After all these years of being stuck in this hell hole could she be made free?

"What is this deal?" Alice asked, trying to keep eagerness from reaching her voice. Sulpicia still noticed.

"Eager, aren't you? I guess one would be, if their mate was far away." Alice could feel the mate bond, silent and thought dead for so long, stirring in hopes of seeing her mate again. "Don't be too happy. It will not be an easy path." Alice waited patiently for the woman to tell her what the catch was.

"Little Alice, you just need to form a mate bond with me."