A/N: Here's the third chapter, I hope you all enjoy it. If you do enjoy it, then you should leave a review. Really, I love them.
Chapter Three- Demons and Angels
Arianna POV
I opened my eyes and looked around in shock. Everything was so beautiful, the cracks running through the rock ceiling above my head that formed patterns, the way the light caught the dust motes in the air that made them seem to glow. It all seemed to have this magical effect to it.
I felt kind of strange though, not bad, just strange. I stayed still for a few seconds, like I was a statue carved out of ice. And that's when I realized I wasn't breathing at all. I took a deep breath; the smells were just as defined as the things that I saw, everything had a scent to it, the bed sheets had a musky odour, not dirty, just as if no one had slept in them for a long time, so no one had bothered changing them. I could even smell food cooking down in the city. Strange, you'd think I'd be hungry after that, but the food didn't seem appealing at all.
And my hearing... I could hear people whispering from what I thought was the other end of the city, before I couldn't even hear people shouting a few rooms over if the door was closed. I picked up on every tiny bit of sound now,
All of my physical senses were such a huge shock to my mind, but my mind though, that was the biggest shock of all. It had so much room in it; I knew that now that I had entered this life I would never forget anything at all. When I was human we could always change our physical bodies, working out, getting glasses, but never to this extent, and we could never change our minds like this. What's happened to me?
I sat up in the bed. Looking over to the other side of the room I saw Jane and Aro. What the hell? I could swear they both were glowing, almost like they had auras of colour. Aro was glowing a deep, powerful blue, but both of them had barely any light coming off of them, it was like whatever was making them glow wasn't entirely there right now. And guess what colour Jane has, blood red. Suits her personality perfectly doesn't it?
"How are you feeling?"
"I'm feeling just fine, kind of dead, but at least I don't have onion skin. That was one of my biggest fears you know," I nodded at him seriously. "I definitely do not want to end up looking like you."
He looked at me carefully, the way one would look at a frog about to be dissected. Damn, I didn't even get a rise for the onion skin comment. He took a step forwards, before I could even react he grabbed my hand. There was a flash of his blue-glowing-aura-thing. I hissed at him instinctively. Wait... I hissed? What is happening? Last time I checked I was human, but that's not a human response.
Aro nodded, taking a step back and letting go of my hand. The blue glow disappeared. "You are confused that the reactions you're having, the things you're feeling and seeing aren't things you would have had three days ago." Wait... what? Three days ago? That would make it August the twenty-second. My family must be freaking out.
How did he know that though? It's like he read my- He read my mind! That evil, nosey... I let out a small snarl. "You read my mind." He nodded. "Without asking." He nodded again, smirking at me. It was the kind of smirk that said 'there's nothing you can do about it' and that really pissed me off. I let out another snarl, louder this time, with more force behind it. "Fuck off and leave me alone." I spat.
"No, I don't think I really want to." Was all he said in response. I heard Jane snickering. I'd swear the two of them were trying to piss me off on purpose.
"I'm shocked she hasn't lunged for your throat yet Master, any other newborn would have. She really does have absolutely amazing control," murmured Jane.
"So am I, she has quite a little temper too." Aro nodded in agreement with Jane's comment.
"But the reason you feel like this Arianna, the moods swings included, is that you aren't human anymore, you're one of our kind, a vampire."
That was all it took to make me lose control. These people had the urge to kidnap me and kill me, and I couldn't get any peace even after I'm fucking dead. I let out a shriek of fury and lunged for his throat.
I didn't even get halfway there before a flash of red shot out of Jane and pinned me to the ground, writhing in pain. It went on for five minutes and fifty-three seconds, how she managed to keep it going that long I'm not sure, but when she finally took it off I was too stunned to move.
She walked the two steps further and lifted me off the ground by my throat. "Do you think you can behave now, or do we have to do that again?" She breathed into my ear. I would have turned and tried to get her to let go of me, except I knew she would be able to take my head off before I did that. Her teeth were right beside my neck, and I instinctively knew that that was a very bad thing.
See, as pathetic as it sounds, Jane is about the same height I am, I'm a bit short, just short enough she can pin my neck to her shoulder with one hand, grab my arms with the other, but still be able to bite my head off without bending down. Lucky me, huh?
Aro nodded, "looks like we're going to have to discuss some rules, Arianna. We'll start big, with what everyone else in the vampire world knows, which is; you don't provoke the Volturi, not unless you want to die. I am one of the Volturi, ignoring my orders, trying to escape, attacking someone, little things like that, will make me very, very angry. You really don't want to see me angry, child, someone may not survive the experience." His voice never changed tone from before, it still stayed perfectly polite, but it became a lot scarier.
He smiled at me, but it held no friendliness. He gestured for Jane to follow him, she let go of me and I stumbled forward. "We'll be back later Arianna, think things over for a bit." They walked out and closed the door behind them. I heard the lock click into place.
I stood there, stunned. I could have broken the door down, hell, I could have gone through the wall. But I knew that they would hear it, and I really didn't want Aro to have to go through on his threats. I doubted he'd kill me, that would be an awful waste after he went through so much trouble to get me here, but I bet that after he was done I'd be wishing with all my heart that I was dead.
I curled up on the bed in a ball. I certainly wasn't going anywhere, after all. I felt a strange stinging behind my eyes. You know when you're about to start crying and you fell the tears start to go in your eyes? It was just like that, except that I had no tears, I couldn't even cry to make myself feel better. I started dry-sobbing, curled around my pillow. I just want to go home, to be able to joke with my friends; I don't want to be locked in a castle halfway across the world. I want to go home.
But, we all know that's not a possibility. I'm trapped in a castle with the two most psychotic people on the planet. So I stayed there, curled up in a ball, weeping bitterly.
I heard someone knock on the door. "Go away!" I hissed. All the sadness disappeared and was replaced by a deep, burning rage.
"Ari, it's Alec, can I come in?" I wasn't sure whether or not I wanted him to come in, I mean he seemed nice enough, but he was also one of them.
"Please? I'll go away if you don't want me to..." He may be one of them, but technically, I'm one of them too. He's the only person in this whole castle who's given me a choice. And I need to be able to talk to somebody.
"No it's fine, come in." I sniffed. I sounded strange, when I was human my voice would have been all scratchy, but now it still sounded like wind chimes.
I heard the door open. "It'll lock from the other side if you close it all the way." I warned.
I could practically feel him smile slightly. "It's all right, I have the keys to the door."
"So what brings you here?" Why stop to visit the dangerous newborn that may decide to rip your head off?
"I heard you crying and decided to come and see if I could cheer you up." I looked up and gasped slightly, Alec was glowing too. His was a pale grey, kind of like mist. It looked like he was surrounded by a cloak of fog, but I thought it was beautiful for some reason.
"What?" He asked curiously.
"You have a glow too." He kept looking at me funny, so I decided to explain more. "You look like you're surrounded in mist. Jane and Aro both glowed too, except Aro's was dark blue and Jane's was blood red."
His eyes narrowed slightly and you could tell he was thinking. "Did you notice anything else about the glow?"
"It flashed whenever they did things."
"What things?"
"Aro read my mind and Jane made me feel like I was on fire."
Alec let out a low snarl. "I think I need to have a chat with my sister about that."
I stopped dead. "Jane is your sister?" I probably should have noticed. They looked almost identical.
He looked embarrassed. "Yeah, she's my sister. It doesn't really matter much though; we don't get along very well." Yeah, if I had a sister like Jane I doubted I would get along with her very well either.
I let it drop. You could tell he was uncomfortable about it. "So do you know what the glow is?"
He shook his head. "If I could take a wild guess, I'd say you're seeing people's gifts. Jane, Aro and I all have gifts above the norm of our kind. I bet if you looked at yourself you'd be glowing too."
It made sense. I looked at my hand and realized that he was right, I was glowing too. It was a faint glow, pure white. I nodded, "I do glow!" how could I have not noticed that before? "Is this why Aro changed me? Because he thought I would be gifted?"
Alec nodded. "He sent us out because you were showing the signs of having a very powerful dormant gift. Remember when you were in the car and you started humming, Jane turned to glare at you?" I nodded slowly. "She was trying to torture you."
"But nothing happened..."
"Exactly! Only one person has ever stayed standing during Jane's assaults, Arianna." He said seriously "Bella Cullen, she was still Bella Swan when she came to rescue Edward Cullen, her mate. Aro was intrigued because she was immune to Edward's gifts, so he told Jane to torture her. Nothing happened. She's caused Aro quite a few problems. I'd send her a present for it, but I doubt she'd react well to having a Volturi guard send her a gift. You need to be careful, if Aro thinks you have any chance of being a problem like she is, he'll take steps." I didn't need to ask what steps Aro would take, he made that pretty clear a few minutes ago.
"So I was immune to Jane's gift when I was humming, but not any other time. How does that work?"
"Every one's gifts are controlled by different things like anger, the need to protect someone, imagining something happening. I think with you its singing. We'd have to perform some tests to see though."
That seemed simple enough. I began to hum tunelessly. I felt a warm glow start to glow inside of me, and the white light coming from my skin got stronger. Alec's gift sprang into life, but my light wiped it out, like it was purifying the air around me. Alec beamed, "It worked! Let's see how far we can push it... try singing with actual lyrics now, put as much feeling and emotion into it as you can. Then I want you to try to strengthen or weaken my gift. O.K?"
I did what Alec told me to and began singing. At first it was hesitant, but then I realized with the way my voice had changed it could be inhumanly beautiful, if I put my heart into it. So that's exactly what I did.
How can you see into my eyes like open doors
Leading you down into my core, where I've become so numb
Without a soul, my spirit's sleeping somewhere cold
Until you find it there and lead it back home
Wake me up!
(Wake me up inside)
I can't wake up!
(Wake me up inside)
Save me!
(Call my name and save me from the dark)
Wake me up!
(Bid my blood to run)
I can't wake up!
(Before I come undone)
Save me!
(Save me from the nothing I've become)
As the lyrics increased in strength, my power ebbed and flowed as well. Like a living breathing thing the power had a life of its own. I took control, building up and directing itself at Alec, making him stronger. You could see his eyes light up in wonder with what he's feeling.
Now that I know what I'm without
You can't just leave me
Breathe into me and make me real
Bring me to life
Wake me up!
(Wake me up inside)
I can't wake up!
(Wake me up inside)
Save me!
(Call my name and save me from the dark)
Wake me up!
(Bid my blood to run)
I can't wake up!
(Before I come undone)
Save me!
(Save me from the nothing I've become)
I reversed the power, bringing it back into me, sucking the power out of him until I thought he was about where he was before. I could feel it building up like a rushing dam. I had to do something with it, so I tried bringing it into myself, changing the colour of my own gift.
Bring me to life
I've been living a lie,
there's nothing inside
Bring me to life
Frozen inside without your touch
Without your love, darling
Only you are the life among the dead
All this time, I can't believe I couldn't see
Kept in the dark but you were there in front of me
I've been sleeping a thousand years it seems
Got to open my eyes to everything
Without thought, without voice, without a soul
Don't let me die here
You promised me sacrifice
Bring me to life!
And it worked! That was when I realized the true extent of my new-found gift. I could imitate the colours of every gift on the planet, which meant I could use every gift on the planet. While I was exhilarated, I was also terrified. With a gift so powerful, Aro would never let me leave. I'd be trapped here like a slave for all eternity.
Wake me up!
(Wake me up inside)
I can't wake up!
(Wake me up inside)
Save me!
(Call my name and save me from the dark)
Wake me up!
(Bid my blood to run)
I can't wake up!
(Before I come undone)
Save me!
(Save me from the nothing I've become)
Bring me to life
I've been living a lie
There's nothing inside
Bring me to life...
As the last echoes of music floated away, the power faded as well. Both Alec and I were left sitting totally stunned in a silent room.
That is until Aro pushed the door open chuckling. Oh fuck... we are so dead. "Now wasn't that interesting, turns out you have a very powerful gift after all. Looks like you'll be staying with us for a while." He grabbed my hand, and before I could block his gift there was the huge flash of blue. "Looks like that's not the only thing you discovered either," he threw a look at Alec. "It would appear that Marcus was right about the relationship after all."
He turned away from me and walked over to Alec. His voice became low and dangerous, "I thought I told you to stay out of this room Alec." You could see Alec gulp. Aro reached forwards and grabbed his hand, there was the obvious flash. "I do not care." He responded to Alec's thoughts. "It could be the same as the bond between Romeo and Juliet for all I care. Get out before I make you." Alec looked at me. I made a shooing gesture with my hand.
I didn't want him in trouble with Aro, hell, I didn't want anyone in trouble with Aro. This was his castle, and even outside of Volterra the rules were simple. Provoke the Volturi and you are probably going to die a very slow and very, very painful death.
Aro turned towards me, "Here is your cloak," he threw a long gray thing at me, "wear it within the castle at all times."
I picked it up. I opened my mouth to make a comment, probably something along the lines of; does your fashion sense disappear when you become a vampire, or is that your own, personal, problem.
I decided against it though. Let's not make Aro any more angry than he is now. Alec was playing with something on the table, really Alec, Aro's back is turned right now, but if he turns around and sees you doing that... well you'd better hope you're not up to anything. Aro walked out the door, Alec straightened up right before he turned around. "Come along Alec, I think you're going to have to stay in your room from now on too."
The door clicked into place and I was left alone. I waited until I heard them get a few hallways over before I got up and walked over to the table. I couldn't see anything out of place, but I knew Alec had been doing something. I got down on my knees and looked at the bottom of the table. There was a key there, and a folded up piece of paper.
Alec is both brilliant and suicidal, Aro read his mind before he did it, so the chances of Aro finding out are less, and he did it when Aro's back was turned, but it was still a very, very risky thing to do.
I opened the note.
I thought you might want this.
Wait until about 6:30. Go for the window down the
hall and get out. Don't worry about me,
I can take care of myself.
-Alec
End of Chapter
The song that Ari sang when she was training her gift was Bring Me To Life by Evanescence. I don't own it, I just borrowed it.