Even more violence in this chapter! YAY!

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Chapter Twelve

I burst out of the door, and not even stopping to catch my breath, ran towards where Jasper was crouched over Alice. I skidded to a stop beside him. The blade had struck true, and Alice was struggling to stay alive. "No...Alice..." Jasper was sobbing, the pure agony in his voice making tears spring to my eyes, and for once I wasn't angry that they were there. I crouched on the other side of her, and slowly lifted her shirt from her chest. The crack ran deep, and I could see the telltale red poison seeping from her wound.

"Poisoned blade," I said. I reached to wipe a finger over the poison, but Jasper caught my bandaged wrist, too upset to care about the fragility of my arm.

"Jasper, I need to see what it is." He didn't let go, but I put my other hand on top of his, echoing the way he'd held my hand in the kitchen, "I might be able to help her,"

He released my hand, but he watched me with agonizing patience as I took a sample of the poison with my finger, and inspected it. Relief gushed through me, and obviously he noticed, "You can heal this?"

"Yes," I said, breathless with happiness. I slid Iris from its sheath and held it to my left wrist.

"Wha...What are you doing?" He asked, watching the blade,

"One of our most full-proof poisons, only cured by one thing..." I slid the blade across my wrist, "Witch blood."

The blood spilled from my arm as I deepened the wound, and I positioned it over Alice's tiny form. The blood dripped from my wrist onto her wound. As it seeped into her stone flesh, the poison began to drain out. "It's working!" I said happily,

Jasper watched intently, the blood barely even affecting him. In a few painstaking moments, in which I tried to ignore how quickly I was getting weak now, there was no change in Alice, until without warning, she coughed, and her golden eyes opened. "Alice!" Jasper cried, taking her into his arms. She protested, but it was muffled against his shirt. Instead, I put a hand on his shoulder,

"Jasper, let the girl breath," His eyes met mine, and he must have seen something other than forced humour in them. Either that or he could see my fatigue. My compressed pain at seeing him with her. He pulled away from her, before forcing his gaze from me to her, and smiling at the pixie-haired vampire. She looked at him, and I saw his love for her echoed in her eyes. Then she looked at me, "Thank you," She whispered,

I smiled crookedly, before looking past her at the battles still ensuing in the near distance, "We need to get her inside,"

Jasper nodded, and lifted his mate up easily. I followed them as he darted back into the warehouse. He ran to the staircase, and found a spot hidden under them. This was where he hid Alice, shrouded in shadows. I dropped my bow and quiver beside her, as he crouched at her side, but I glanced back out of the door, "Jasper, we have to go."

"No."

"We have to help them, Jasper," I cried,

He looked up at me, his golden eyes still shining with trapped tears, "I can't just leave her,"

"She'll be safe here. The Hunter's are all outside," I gave him an apologetic look, "We can stay close to the door if you want,"

He looked at me, and then at his wife, lying barely conscious on the ground. Slowly, he kissed her closed eyelids, before standing up swiftly, "Come on then,"

I followed him out of the door. His sadness over his wounded wife seemed to leave as soon as he left the warehouse, as he sprinted towards the closest Hunter. Jasper's fist collided with the witch's face, and he was thrown to the ground, dead. I drew Iris, and launched myself into the fight. A Hunter, around my age in appearance, swung a mace at me, but I turned my shoulder and rolled along the outside of his arm, plunging Iris into the back of his neck. He spluttered, and fell to his knees. I withdrew the dagger, and walked past him as he fell face down in the dirt. Striding onwards, I was practically in tune with Jasper as we worked our way through the crowd. I grabbed a Hunter as he lunged at me, weapon-less, and turned him to face Jasper as he leapt up to him and bit into his neck. His eyes met mine as he tore the flesh from the witch, spilling his blood over us both. "I like your style," I commented, giving him a smirk. He wiped blood from his mouth, and raised his eyebrow.

Before he could talk back, a female Hunter swung a sword at his head. I threw Iris into her cheek before she could hit him, and the sword just missed the somewhat stunned vampire. He recovered quickly though, and snapped the girl's neck. I couldn't feel too bad at killing a female Hunter – what I'd once aspired to be - as I slid the dagger out of her. Jasper didn't seem particular perturbed at killing a girl either, and he was quick to turn to the next Hunter. I had my hands full too, as two Hunters came at me. I slashed one in the temple, but the other hit my injured wrist, and Iris flew up into the air. Luckily, the Hunter I'd hit stumbled backwards, so I only had one to deal with. The Hunter hit out with his own dagger, but I kicked him between the legs. He crumpled, and I backhanded him across the face, and whilst he was still reeling, I head-butted him on the bridge of the nose. He collapsed, and whilst he was down, I caught Iris and finished him off. The other Hunter was lying still on the floor, so I left him alone whilst I defended myself from more Hunters. Jasper joined me then, and we stood back-to-back, fabulously clichéd, and took down any Hunter's that ventured too close.

"How are you doing?" He shot over his shoulder, as I heard the telltale crunch of a skull from his side.

"Actually, I'm doing really well," The adrenaline coursing through my veins - annihilating my weakness, for awhile at least - and the fact that I'd barely been injured here, made me let out a kind of wild laugh, "This is actually quite fun."

"You enjoy this!" He cried, as I punched a Hunter in the face, sending him falling back into a group of others.

"Fighting is fun when you're winning. This is what I wanted...originally..."

"How can you choose to fight?" He exclaimed,

"American Civil War," I quoted, tossing my hair over my shoulder and raising my eyebrow in a smug look. He looked back at me and shrugged, obviously without a comeback.

I looked back to the ever-decreasing-crowd of Hunters, and held Iris out in warning. They, of course, ignored the warning, and came at me. I strengthened my grip on the dagger, and started deflecting hits and killing where I could. Finally, the last of the Hunters fell, and I assessed the damage I'd taken. One of them had managed to scratch my cheek, and my knuckles were bleeding, as was the fresh wound on my wrist. I tried not to think about how much blood I'd lost. Instead I focused on watching Jasper's back...more literally than metaphorically. Jasper's solid back rubbing and tensing behind mine felt strange. I wasn't even used to fighting battles, let alone fighting in pairs. Eventually, he turned to me, "Come on,"

There was blood all over us both, matting with the dust in our hair and clothes, and the feral expressions on our faces and lethal tactics of killing seemed to terrify our opponents. Jasper punched a Hunter in the face, and I ducked down, sweeping my leg out and kicking his legs out from beneath him, sending him crashing to the floor. The name Emmett had christened me with earlier, ninja-witch, seemed adequate now. We worked together and apart again - deadly on our own, and lethal together. It was only when I was finished gouging the eyes out of an unfortunate Hunter (in my defence, he kicked me in the shin), when I remembered something.

My father wasn't here.

It wasn't possible that he'd been killed...it couldn't be. It would be too easy. So where was he? My gaze was eventually pulled to the warehouse. Oh God...

"Alice..."

Jasper was a little behind me, currently tearing a Hunter's heart out, and I whipped around to face him, "Jasper!"

His head snapped up and he dropped the defiled Hunter to the ground, obviously expecting me to be needing help, but when he saw my expression he was by my side in a moment. "What is it? Are you hurt?"

I shook my head, "He's in the warehouse. My...the tall, grey-haired man. He's in the warehouse."

His eyes widened, and he grabbed me and threw me onto his back, before taking off towards the ominous building. Dropping me just before the door, he flitted into the warehouse.

When I followed him through the door, the darkness cloaked everything for a moment. "Jasper?"

I saw him, a few metres in front of me. I moved to go forward, but out of the shadows to his left, a figure appeared. I looked, expecting Jasper to see him, but he was too busy looking for Alice,

"Jasper!" I cried, but it was too late. The figure shot something at the blonde vampire, and after a moment of confusion, he fell to his knees. I made to move to his aid, reaching for Iris, but someone grabbed me from the side, pinning my arms to my sides with one heavy arm and nearly choking me with another. The figure shifted forward out of the darkness, and slid towards me. I recognized the sunken white skin, the dead eyes, the grey hair – my father. He held a dart in his skeletal hands, his sharpened, grey nails scratching against it, drawing the white fluid out. "Father-," I began, but he didn't hesitate. He sunk the dart with unnecessary force into my neck. His glazed violet eyes were the last thing I saw as I fell into the dark.

...

When I came to, my mind was no where near as scattered as it had been in the (many) past times it had happened. My right temple was pulsing violently against the cold stone floor, decorated with bits of rubbish, scrap metal and plastic sheets. I smelt blood, and I looked over at my left wrist, which lay beside me. It was still bleeding, but the wound was beginning to close over. It didn't mean that I hadn't lost a lot of blood, especially looking at the suspicious red stain stretching out from where my hand lay. I slowly tested my limbs one-by-one, and despite them all feeling heavier than lead, I was satisfied that they all worked, I looked ahead at my surroundings. We were still in the warehouse, and I recognized this room as the one I'd led the witches into to begin with. I was facing the door, so the expanse of the room was behind me. I couldn't see Jasper or Alice, or my father. Slowly, I searched my belt for Iris.

"Oh, you won't find that in there," My father's voice mocked from behind me, I rolled over to look up at him.

He was stood close to me, with two Hunters on either side. One was a towering, but lean and deadly looking young man, with leather armour fitted around his muscular body and a pair of equally lethal scythes in his belt. He held his arms behind his back, and I couldn't help but let him remind me of Jasper. On my father's other side, was Nicholas. He didn't even look at me. I struggled to get up, but after one gesture from my father, the lean Hunter strode forwards, and kicked my down roughly, before grabbing my arms and heaving me from the ground. He hooked my arms behind my back, and I felt his scythes brush menacingly against my thighs. He needn't have used such force though, as my head swam and I could barely stand. The adrenaline had gone, and I was getting weaker by the moment. My father was indefinitely the most powerful in the room, despite lacking physical strength, and he knew it. "I am ashamed of you, Morgana. Siding with vampires. Your mother would be turning in her grave,"

I tried to look him in the eye, to show that I wasn't afraid of the decision I'd made, "I was doing what was right. These vampires don't drink human blood, they don't-,"

He didn't even let me finish, he strode forward and slapped me across the face, his nails scratching brutally across my cheek, drawing blood. I heard a protest from the back of the room, and as my father turned to look, I saw Jasper. He was in a pitiful state. He arms were chained to the wall, I was sure with some Cult device that stopped him from breaking free, and cracks ran down his face where he'd been beaten. His jacket and shirt were torn, revealing the top of his marbled chest, where more cracks resided. Alice was chained to the floor a few metres to his right, in the corner. She looked unconscious...or worse.

My father's dead eyes fell on Jasper, and his cracked lips opened, "Oh. So that's how it is,"

He turned, and with speed like a striking cobra, he caught my face in his fingers. His skin smelt like death, and his nails were splintered and painful against my skin. He dug them into my cheeks, "You lust after my daughter?"

Jasper said nothing, and I was glad that Alice wasn't awake. My father looked at Nicholas, "Kill him,"

"No!" I cried, struggling to free my arms, but it was no use. My father, however, turned his glassy stare on me, and raised his hand to Nicholas. He stopped, but kept his weapon held – a toothed dagger, tipped with poison. My father forced me to look at him,

"You lust after him also?"

It made me sick how he refused to say love; even if lust was probably more accurate in this case. I forced a nod. My father barked a laugh, an unnatural sound that sent a shiver through my core. He intertwined his other hand in my hair, scratching my scalp, and yanked me forward. I cried out, but he just snarled, "You are no daughter of mine."

He didn't look away from me, the stench of his rotting breath making me choke. "Kill him," He spat,

I saw Nicholas move behind him, but as I shouted to him, I let out a final silent plea to anyone listening that he hadn't abandoned me, "Nicholas! Now!"

To my surprise Nicholas's expression turned strong. He drew back the dagger, and before my father knew what had happened, he hurled it. It hit the Hunter holding me, and he fell back, crying out. My father released me, and I pushed him away, sprinting towards Jasper. "I'm sorry, Jasper, I'm sorry..." I stuttered as I moved to undo his bonds

"He's your father," He asked.

I stopped for a moment, and looked down at him silently. Before I could either speak or release the vampire, a cry came from behind me.

"Morgana!" Nicholas screamed as the other Hunter caught his chin and shoulder.

"Nicholas, no!" I cried, but it was too late. The Hunter snapped his neck.

...

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