Author's Note: I have no ownership of anything Twilight related, except of course for my own character Arcia Larent and the mysterious vampire ^_^

Sorry for not updating, this has just been sitting around on my database for some time now. Hopefully it's well worth the wait to some degree.

Chapter 5

Black Roots and Darkened Paths

How was one supposed to begin a journey of epic proportions? Was it to be taken simply step by step or simply rushed in to? Arcia guessed the best place to start would be back to her old hometown, wherever that was. She remembered the girl that had claimed to be her sister; not by blood of course, but she was the closest to family she had.

Alice quickly gathered the information on Arcia by looking through the missing persons' database. They both chuckled as they viewed her profile. She still looked beautiful, but not so much as she did now, and her eyes were a beautiful shade of lilac green. Her last name was Larent…Arcia Larent. The name tasted foreign on the lips of the two vampires. She would always be Arcia Cullen to Alice. Arcia smiled at Alice's thoughts.

"So I guess we'll start in this town here." She pointed to a map on the wall. Alice had converted a whole room of the house to a seemingly specials ops room.

Maps lined the wall, charts, graphs and pictures, which all somehow led to Arcia, pasted the walls, so that not one shred of the original wall paper could be seen. Arcia had thought that Alice had gone too far, but she didn't bother to stand in her way; it was inevitable.

"Yes, that's where that other girl lives." Arcia stated, rushing to finally know her origins.

"She has a name you know." Alice said snidely as she nudged Arcia a bit.

"I know it's just hard to see her now. I know I caused her much pain the last time we met." It was hard hurting those that Arcia had known in her past life- her mortal life, and not even remembering them was worse.

"Maybe you could apologize when we stop by for a visit." Alice joked but received a pensive glare from Arcia.

"We can't be seen; we can't let them know I'm still alive…" Alice looked at Arcia comically; finding her words humorous. "Ok well not alive, but to some degree still in existence."

"Alright, alright, we'll do it your way and be sneaky little thieves." Alice stated with excitement. "So I suppose we should wear all black, you know I just found the cutest little black top…" She ranted on about the many clothes she had come upon yesterday, but Arcia couldn't concentrate on that at the moment.

That vision had still been coming to her. She still saw herself destroying the Cullen family; raving mad with a thirst that was neither vampire nor human driven. She never let Alice see into her future again, but she would still be able to see it. No matter how hard she told her self she would never do it, it still came. Alice had told her that if she had changed her mind, the vision would alter soon enough, but it didn't, and that's what caused her to fear.

"Arcia? Are you even listening to me?" Alice said as she looked worriedly towards the girl lost in thought.

"I'm sorry Alice…" Arcia sighed, knowing that this was her burden to carry.

"You can talk to me Arcia." She grabbed her hand and held it tightly within her own.

"Alice…I can't." Arcia looked pained to not be able to tell her.

"It's the vision again isn't it? You still see it." She had hit the spot.

Arcia looked away to the wall where her human picture hung. The face looked fake, the smile forced, the eyes were another power all together and it saddened Arcia to not know anything about this girl.

"I believe in you Arcia." Alice said and placed her velvet soft hand on Arcia's face, making her look at her. "I need you to trust in me." Alice smiled.

Arcia looked at the woman before her; Alice was smiling. How she could smile, was beyond Arcia's thoughts. How could she love a monster so much? How could she love the destroyer of her family? It pained her to see the deep devotion that Alice had towards her, but she was glad she had Alice's love. She needed it.

"We'll start in my home town, Everett." Arcia decided to change the subject; it was best that way.

Alice nodded, seeming to understand the need to sway from the morbid prediction and focused on the map. It seemed awfully strange that Arcia's hometown was quite a distance away; how had she ended up in Forks? Furthermore, what had Lisa, her foster sister, been doing in Port Angeles? That was a pretty far shopping trip to take from Everett.

"Those were my thoughts exactly." Arcia spoke and made way to the door. "Which car are we taking?"

"The fastest, of course!" Alice shrieked and hurried to the garage.

However, before Alice could make it to her beloved speed car, Jasper caught hold of her.

"Alice! Hold up." He spoke softly into her ear. "I have to tell you something." He eyed Arcia and knew that she had already read his mind. "Emmett and I have been scouting the area for awhile. We thought that maybe whoever turned her into a vampire would come back." Alice looked at him, wide-eyed. "Someone's been here, Alice, and we think it's him." Jasper took a firmer grasp of his beloved. "Be careful, we don't know what he's like; we haven't been able to catch him."

Alice stared nervously at Arcia then to the window; she was frustrated that Arcia could block her powers – It scared her not knowing what fate had laid out for them.

"Its fine, he won't come near me. I don't see it." Arcia replied walking past Jasper and Emmett; the need for knowing her past suddenly burned violently within her. "Let's go, we'll be safe."

"Yeah don't worry Jasper." Alice said with a smile as she kissed her vampire playfully on the nose. "We'll be back before dinner." She winked.

Jasper stared intently at the two girls; he'd never want either of them to be hurt. As his gaze rested upon Arcia, she spoke to his mind. 'I'm sorry'. He nodded as he held her gaze for a moment, but she soon tore away.

With Alice's amazing yet ferocious driving skills, they made it to Everett in no time, literally. Arcia noticed how the cars speed did not seem to faze her; in fact it seemed to be going at a normal pace. However as she looked at the speedometer, she noticed the marker to be going well over 140. She glanced away from the ever increasing speedometer and focused on the atmosphere outside of the car. It was a dull, gray place, but somehow it sparked with some sort of village bustle.

"Want to check out your home?" Alice inquired as she parked in front of a convenience store.

"You mean the house I formerly lived in." Arcia smirked. "Sure."

Both vampires took off at jet-like speed from their leather bound seats. It wouldn't be wise to park in front of the household, someone was bound to notice their presence if they saw the parked car. Naturally it was always faster on foot anyways, at least for a vampire it was.

"We're nearly there and no one's home." Arcia spoke directly into Alice's mind.

"Lucky us." She mentally said back with a wink.

They stopped short in front of a gated dwelling. Its two stories seemed to come out of a fairy tale. The pillars resembled towers in which maidens were surely to be singing from, the front door was grand and noble, and the sunshine that blanketed the well-paneled roof all collaborated in one to make a spectacular building. Yet something made the fairy-tale castle a bit eerie. Everything seemed to be shadowed on the inside, dark and foreboding.

"It's pretty nice." Alice commented as she entered the backyard, which was just as grand.

"Let's go in." Arcia was determined as she climbed to the top window.

Alice followed and just as she placed her hand on the window, Arcia stopped her from pulling it loose.

"Wait!" Arcia stammered as something came back to her. "We can't just pull it off. There's an alarm system set up, as well as cameras."

"How do you know?"

Arcia looked straight at Alice. It had just come to her, the answer. It wasn't even a flashback; something inside had simply told her that she would be caught if she had forced her way in.

"I just do, I'm not sure how." Arcia dropped down to the floor. "Let's go this way." She ran towards the back door.

"How are we supposed to get in?"

"The system is right there next to that wall." She pointed to a white box with numbers. "See it?"

"I see it but it's not like we can push the buttons from out here."

Arcia furrowed her brows in frustration. Why did this house, of all the houses, have to be the one with top notch security? Out of sheer frustration she threw her fist towards the backyard trees. The branches tore from their limbs and flew straight towards the other houses. Arcia regretted her action and filled with panic, she focused all her attention to the branches. Alice watched as the girl somehow stopped and moved the branches without touching them.

"Now you're a telekinetic?" Alice asked amused. "What other tricks do you know?"

"I thought…" Arcia stopped to think.

She had a theory behind her unexplained powers. She had thought that her powers derived only from vampires she had connected with; she had simply related to them and collected the power from them. However no one in the Cullen family had telekinesis as one of their powers. Where had this power derived from? The only vampire she had known, other than the Cullens', was her creator. Even then, she did not truly know him.

"Never mind, but I guess now we have a way in don't we." Arcia smirked.

"Do you know the code?" Alice asked.

"1,1,2,4….I think." Arcia once again amazed Alice.

She focused on the number pad in front of her and punched in the numbers gently. Sure enough the light on the alarm blinked from red to green. The doors clicked open. Arcia opened the door and cautiously walked in. She knew no one was home, but something inside told her to keep her guard up. The feeling of uneasiness gnawed at her core.

"Let's find my room." She instructed Alice.

"Right! I'll check upstairs." Alice quickly made her way up to the 2nd floor. "It's up here!"

Arcia pondered on how Alice knew it to be her room, but as soon as she entered she understood why. A poster of Joan Jett graced the well, right next to a mural of Joan of Arc.

"That's interesting" Arcia said out loud as she examined her former home. "I must've kept a diary or something…" she mused as she began to rummage around.

Everything was surprisingly neat and orderly. Tons of book filled the shelves on her furthest wall. Alice skimmed through them, noticing titles such as Pride & Prejudice, Joan of Arc by Mark Twain, and Oliver Twist. She was quite the bookworm in her opinion, seeing as there were far too many books here than Alice had ever taken the care to read- and she had been alive for past a century! The color scheme of the room was simple- gray for the most part, and the furniture was wood. Alice grinned thinking how Arcia could still be defined by such a scheme. She was rather gloomy sometimes like the color gray, but at the same time she was very natural and sturdy just like the wood.

'You think I could still be like my old self?' Arcia messaged to her companion.

"In some ways yes, I still carry on lots of traits from my old life." She motioned to her choice of clothes "For instance, I still have the most awesome taste of apparel."

Arcia chimed with a slight laugh and continued her search. There were countless books, but none indicated that they were written by her. If she was such an adamant reader, surely she'd be interested in writing. Like an itch unscratched another memory persisted.

"Pride & Prejudice…" Arcia voiced out loud. "It can't be!" She quickly searched for the book.

She pulled it off the shelf with such haste that Alice was a bit startled at the motion. Arcia's eyes began to scan over the book; there was nothing odd about it, but something inside her insisted that she take a look at it. She opened up the pages and all was made clear.