CHAPTER 5

I lay in bed, motionless, quiet except for the thudding of my heart. I was making an extra effort to do this, to listen to the unsteady beat of my heart. There was no point in getting up. I wasn't doing anything today, and if I was it would be seeing the Volturi. And if that was what I was doing I wanted to hear the beat of my heart for right now.

I also knew the reason why my heart beat was unsteady, irregular. Or maybe it was reasons.

My first guess was that the dream had scared me, seeing all of that. I couldn't close my eyes during it. And now the image was etched into my brain. It popped up in my head every few seconds, and when I closed my eyes it was like it was taped to the inside of my eyelids.

The second reason was also the dream, but not because of it's content. It was more to the extent of its type. It was the type of dream I only had when Rory was with me. The dream would be too vivid to be a normal dream. I would actually be able to think in it, I could see through my eyes. I wouldn't be able to move. That was the type of dream it was. It was also the type of dreams I had asked Rory about and he had never answered me.

I couldn't believe that Rory was back here. It had only been two weeks without him. I was so angry that he would have come here when I so obviously had tried to get away from him. But at the same time it had lifted my heart.

I couldn't hide much longer how much I missed him. How much I was still in love with him. I wasn't getting over him. I knew that it was sick and wrong, even pathetic for him to have this much influence on me. I had moved halfway across the world to be rid of him.

A knock on my door broke my thoughts. I heard my heart jump erratically. My dad pushed the door open and entered my room. I was having trouble looking at him. He came and sat on the edge of my bed.

"What's wrong?" he asked sympathetically.

"Nothing." I answered too quickly. I rolled over to face the other direction. He placed his hand on my back and I couldn't hold back the cringe that shot down my spine. He immediately retracted his hand. I rolled back to look at him so I didn't seem to child-like.

"What wrong?" he asked again.

"Nothing." I answered at a better pace this time, nothing that I wanted to tell him at least. He looked sad, almost regretting. Did he regret telling me the truth? He sighed.

"Why don't you get up, then we are going to see the…Volturi." He said. I knew that he didn't really have another choice, so I didn't resent him for telling them. I got up and my dad got off my bed and walked to the door. "I see you down stairs?" he said. I nodded and he left. I walked to my bathroom and stripped down and got into my shower once the water was warm.

From someone looking in at me, they might think that I was calm, serene. There was no real expression on my face and I had lain in bed quietly this morning. But they would be wrong, for inside I was struggling with many thoughts and ideas.

I stepped out after washing. I dried my body and hair then got dressed in jeans and a fitted white plain long sleeve top. I pulled on my shoes and walked down stairs. I walked past my dad and Mac and into the kitchen where I poured myself a bowl of cereal.

I could see from my peripheral vision my father talking to Mac. There lips moving so fast they might as well have just trembled. I didn't bother to try and pick out the ultra fast words that they were speaking. I finished my cereal then and brought it to the sink before walking to the main entrance.

I took a deep breath and turned to face Mac and my father.

"Are we going?" I asked monotonous. I was disengaging myself from my body. If these were my last moments I wanted to have everything behind me. I didn't want to be bothered by all of my problems.

Even my heartbeat had slowed to a steady pounding.

I walked out to the car. I sat in back while my dad and Mac sat in front.

The car drive was short. I got out of the car and stared up at the enormous castle like building in front of me. It didn't seem as great when I was almost positive that inside lay my death.

I walked steadily into the gates ahead and into the building. Inside there was a receptionist I guessed. She was pretty, with a bit darker skin.

"Hello Robert. Mac." She said to my father. "And who have you brought with you?" she cooed like she was talking to a child. I was tempted to retaliate and tell her some mean thing. But instead I kept my impassive mind set.

"This is my daughter Cassandra. She's sixteen." He said like he was just as annoyed by her as I was moments earlier.

"Mmhmm, well Aro Marcus and Caius are down the hall. They are waiting for you." She said sitting back in her chair.

My father led the way I could feel Mac just behind me. We walked into an ornate room. There were three chairs that slightly resembled the ones in the room from my dream, but they were more lavish. The floor was also wood and polished.

In the chairs sat Aro, Marcus, and Caius. Next to them were women. They weren't dressed as they had been before when I had seen them. They were now dressed in long robes, that much contrasted what every other person in the vicinity wore that wouldn't have been as conspicuous if seen on the street. Dressed in nice fabrics and colors were a few exquisite woman, obviously vampires.

The three of us stood in front of the chairs in the grand room. Aro got out of his chair and glided, almost floated to us.

"Robert, I see you have brought Cassandra, good job." Aro held out his hand and I saw my father press the tips of his fingers against it. Aro stood for a moment then withdrew his hand. "Hmm, I wonder why that was." He muttered. Then he turned to address me.

I stood, staring at him, meeting his eyes. My heart beat in my ears, its steadiness pleased me.

"Hello Cassandra." He said pleasantly.

"Hello." I said softly.

"You don't seem afraid." He commented.

"No, I'm more anticipating and there isn't anything to be afraid of." I said. I hadn't thought before I spoke but the words had come out so truthful.

"And what are you anticipating." He asked.

"Death. And if I already know that there isn't anything to be afraid of. Once I die. I won't have memories, or even the ability to think. I won't be able to mourn the loss of my life. So there is nothing to fear." I said.

"That's reasonable." He said in an almost amused tone. "But we will not be bringing death to you today." He said. I stood puzzled. Then what did they bring me here for?

I felt my heart beat stutter to a more normal rate and my calmness melt away.

"Then why am I here?" my voice broke. Aro chuckled.

"That is better. Cassandra, I believe your father has explained what our job is here. So your assumption was predictable. You are here because you are unique to say the least. For some unimaginable reason you have unintentionally gotten past all of our powers."

"Yes, I know that." I said.

"Are you doing something to have this affect?"

"No." I answered honestly.

The questions continued, most of them were similar to this. Eventually the Marcus and Caius joined in. the way their questions were phrased it was like they thought that I must be doing something. A few times Aro tried to use his power on me, but it was to no avail.

By the time we left it was dark outside. My father exhaled a sigh of relief. I did too. I was eager to get home and go to bed. And if I was being honest with myself it was because it would remind me that Rory had come, I wasn't necessarily excited for the actual dream.

I ate a hearty dinner seeing as I hadn't eaten since breakfast. I hurried upstairs got in my P.J.'s and hopped into bed. I rolled around for a bit until I fell asleep.

I woke up the next morning disappointed. He hadn't come back, I hadn't dreamed.

I was in the car with Mac being driven to school. It had been a month since my dream. Rory hadn't come back since. Occasionally I would think that maybe it was just a normal dream, but would then remember how no dream could be that vivid, that realistic.

I went and met with the Volturi almost every Saturday now. They almost always asked the same questions. I was always tense when I arrived. Who knows they could just grow tired of me and decide that one of my visits to just get rid of me?

My friends hadn't thought much of me being taken away that night by Mac. They said that it was okay and not a big deal. They applauded me on being able to sneak out in the first place. I was pretty close with them now and was able to speak almost fluent Italian.

Mac and I drove in silence now. We almost always did.

I was trying to put on an act though, to fool everyone. I was dying on the inside.

The only people that I couldn't fool were Aro Marcus and Caius. They would always ask what was wrong, and I would say nothing, though there many millennia of living probably gave them some insight. Aro would usually comment by saying 'if only I could hear your thoughts' or whatnot. I always felt strangely uneasy around the three of them. Aro tended to act as if he had known me my whole life and longer though I was almost always reluctant to answer any of his questions too honestly.

I was dying inside because since Rory hadn't returned I could only come to one conclusion, he didn't want me anymore. I knew that I had broken up with him and left to get away from him. But the notion that he still wanted to be with me had always been there. I knew that I was still in love with him. That idea let me know that I could always come back if I really wanted to. That there still was a possibility that I would have the happy ending that I wanted.

We pulled up to the school. I took a breath and put on a smile that looked forced even to me.

"Bye Mac" I said stepping out of the car, my book bag over my shoulder.

"Bye Cassie" he said then pulling away. I walked to where my friends usually stood. I didn't see any of them. My eyebrows knitted together. I knew that when I had gotten up this morning that today would be hard. For one thing I had tried to pull a shirt out of the pile of clothing and other things that were on top of my dresser and everything had fallen off.

And another reason that I knew today would be hard was that one of the things that had fallen off of my desk had been a small velvet box. One that Rory had given and inside the bracelet was there. And because I was pathetic and stupid I had slipped it onto my wrist to wear today.

I decided to walk to my first class instead of wait around. I could take the time to read what we were supposed to have read last night in our book. I could hear the jingling of my bracelet as I walked.

I entered my first period class room. I was surprised to see William already there. The board said that we were changing seats today. I walked over to William and he looked up.

"Hey" he said.

"Hi, what are you doing here, where was everyone, no one was outside." I said back.

"No body was out side today?" he asked.

"No."

"Hmm, well I'm here because Rachel and I got into a fight this morning." He said leaning back against a desk.

"That's lousy. Did you do the reading last night?"

"No, I hope we don't have any in class talks about it."

"Me too."

"Are you all right?" he asked. Oh no, I must have dropped my smile or he had somehow picked up some tenor in my voice.

"Yea, why?" I said trying to perk up.

He frowned, creasing his perfect tanned skin.

"I don't know, you just seem down lately."

"Oh." I said looking away. I was surprised when he put his arm around me and I jumped a bit. He laughed. I just wasn't used to that much human touch as I had been before. My father was always afraid that if he hugged me back that I would break in half.

"Just cheer up, what ever it is; I'm sure it's going to be okay." He said and when I looked up to him I almost believed him. He truly looked like he cared and that wanted me to be happy. Some how I did smile, a real smile.

The bell rang and the teacher walked in along with a few other students. They all read the board and lined up along the back wall. Mr. Cunningham walked down the aisles of desks and sat each person at one.

At the third row of desks he called William. William took his seat at the second to last desk. Then Mr. Cunningham called my name for me to sit behind William. I almost jumped for joy.

I walked to my seat as slowly as I could. It had turned out that William was a great friend. The class passed easily but probably because William and I were whispering about things the entire time. I could feel things getting better.

As soon as we parted for next period though my spirits dropped below where they had been before. Eleanor still tried to take me as an addition to her friends. Though it was only in hopes of getting William, Patrick, James, Max, or Rodney to talk to her and her friends.

After that class I was tempted to go and find Rachel and everyone else except I knew that I had to study for an English exam.

Since I was trying to get to sleep earlier in hopes that Rory would come back, I hadn't been doing much studying and I knew that if I kept this negligence to my school work up that it would show on my grades.

I went to the library, pulled out my English book and got to work. I worked vigilantly until the bell rang where I got up and went to my English class. I met Rachel there. She too asked what was wrong, though when I told her nothing she didn't give off that same comforting quality that William had.

I sat for the exam and was glad that I had studied. I was doing reasonably well now that I knew Italian, of course there were always words that I didn't know and I would have to guess from the context of the sentence.

After that I went to Science. Ms. Remly hadn't become much nicer to me. I made sure that I was never again late for her class. We had moved seats a while ago and I now didn't sit next to Jenna.

After the class we walked to lunch and I was happy to see William sitting there at the table, I hoped that he and his sister had worked things out. I thought that he might be my best friend here.

I sat at the table. They were already immersed in some type of argument. I sighed and started to pick at my lunch with little interest. I was doing this when Alexis turned to ask me.

"So who did you think that you saw that first day here?" this was a question that they reverted to about twice a week they always nagged me to tell them but I never would. But today I wanted to, I wanted to tell them.

"It was my ex-boyfriend." I said. They were silent for a moment probably taken aback by me actually answering.

"Oh." Said Eliza, being the first to recover her self from shock.

They soon recovered themselves and started firing questions at me. I wouldn't tell them his name though. I told them what he looked like.

"Did you love him?" Allison asked.

"Yes." I answered quickly hoping for them to skip over it and go on to the next question. But they lingered there for a moment.

"Who broke up with whom?" Rachel asked.

"I broke up with him." I said too fast again but stupidly my throat felt choked up.

"Do you still love him?" Alexis asked. I stared at her unwillingly wishing that she could somehow take the question back.

"I broke up with him." I repeated. They could make what they wanted of the. There was no way that I would admit the truth so bluntly. The bell rang then. I got to my feet abruptly and asked Patrick if he was ready to go.

He looked at the others confused then to me.

"Yea…" he said grabbing his tray and back pack. We dumped our trash and then left for gym. I quickly ditched him to go and change. Once I was done I entered the gym and sat on my designated roll call number. Patrick came out and sat next to me even though his number wasn't even close to mine.

I turned to smile at him. For a moment I thought that I might pass out. I thought that it was Rory. Rory before he was a vampire. The Rory that I first like. With his black dyed hair and blue eyes.

My breathing caught and I felt myself get dizzy I blinked and saw that it wasn't him though, only Patrick as confused by my behavior as ever. My throat closed up and I could feel tears coming to my eyes. I turned my head away.

"I have to go, I-I don't feel well." I said getting to my feet.

"Do you want me to bring you to the nurse's office?" he asked when I stumbled after getting to my feet.

"No, no that's alright. I'll se you tomorrow. Okay?"

"Okay" he said standing. And he hugged me. I felt a surge of sadness run through me at the motion. I smiled to him them went to the locker room. I quickly found my cell phone and pulled it out. I was crying now. I dialed Mac's phone number and pressed talk.

It only rang once before he picked up.

"Cassie?" he asked.

"I need you to come and pick me up." I sobbed to him.

"What? What happened?" he asked.

"Nothing" I choked out. "I just need you to come and pick me up." I said.

"Alright, alright. Meet me as soon as you can where I normally pick you up." He spoke calmly and it was soothing to hear.

"Okay." I said hanging up then changing out of my uniform and into my clothing.

I walked past the other girls in the room with my bag over my arm. I knew that they were watching me as I walked in the wrong direction. I was surprised to see the car already there, but I should have known seeing as fast as a driver that he was.

I almost ran to the car and got in. the tears streaming down my face. He pulled away from the curb and onto the road. I continued to cry though. All of the emotions that I had suppressed were now pouring out of me. We were driving along the expanse of road that was uninhabited when Mac pulled over. He turned the car off and turned to look at me.

"What's wrong Cassie?" he asked.

"Nothing." I repeated for the millionth time today.

"If it was nothing you wouldn't have called me to pick you up from school sobbing." He said. "If you don't tell me I'm going to turn this car around and drive you right back to school." He said. That left me no choice. I took a few deep breaths before telling him everything. I had managed to control my crying by the time I started talking.

"Do you know about Rory?" I asked at first.

"All I know is what you said about him with your father." He replied.

"Well Rory was my best friend, Kirsten's, boyfriend a couple of years ago. Then he broke up with her. But we stayed friends. I liked him then but didn't say anything. Then about a year ago he transferred to our school." My breathing was coming in short gasps. "And he was different. He was a vampire, though I didn't know for a while. But he was like you. He didn't drink from people. And I started getting these dreams, they were so vivid and realistic, and they started to come true. But I only got dreams like that when Rory was with me at night. You see he is the only one whose gift can work on me. His gift is to see someone's subconscious." I stopped for a moment to gauge his reaction. He seemed to just be paying attention. "And I saw Kirsten die before it happened. And then she came back, as a vampire herself. She was very...gifted. She was able to control people. And she tried to get Rory to kill me." I explained everything of that day in detail to him. How I had to escape out the bathroom.

"Is that why you're upset?" he asked.

"No, I'm not done." I could feel the tears start to flow a second time as I thought about the rest of my story. "I had to tell the doctors that I had been cutting myself and that was why I was so banged up and had a huge cut in my mouth. After that I went to rehab and the rest of the year was okay. I guess. Then the last day of school I broke up with him."

"Why?" he asked. I was reluctant to tell him but did anyway. I repeated the conversation and how when Kirsten had been controlling Rory how she had asked the questions that turned my world upside down.

"It was just a waste of time for me to be with him if nothing would come of it. The summer passed and I knew that he was still visiting me at night because my dreams continued. Then he gave me this stupid bracelet on my birthday, he left it on the door step." I pulled back my sleeve to show him. "Then I came here to get away from him, to get away from it all. And the problem is that I'm still in love with him. And I can't help it. Then the other night I got one of my dreams again and I knew that he had been there. But I haven't had one since. I can only guess that he left. That he doesn't want me anymore."

"But didn't you break up with him, isn't it alright that he has moved on?" Mac asked confused.

"It should be but…" I couldn't find a way to explain it. I curled over and started to cry. Mac put his hand on my back to make me feel better, and it did. I felt relieved to have it off my chest and I tried to breathe evenly.

I sat up.

"Please don't tell my dad about this!" I thought immediately.

"I won't, don't worry." He said

"Does he know that you're here?" I asked.

"No, he wasn't home when you called."

"Okay." I said.

Mac started to drive again and I sighed. My world was falling apart at the seams no matter how hard I tried to keep it together.