Last Chance Review: Jake or Seth?
"I'm sorry Carlisle but I seem to have misunderstood what you just said, could you please repeat that?" Bella said calmly.
"Love, he said that Brooke seems to be half-vampire half human, also known as a hybrid," Edward clarified.
"Maybe I should have read more of that damn book..." I muttered.
"What do you mean, Brooke?" Edward questioned.
I popped the imaginary bubble from my head and thought about all of the events that led up to this moment.
Edward watched me intently and finally, turned to Bella.
"Maybe we should go somewhere for a little while, love. This is a lot to take in at once," he said.
The wolves won't be happy with this at all, they'll consider her an unreliable threat Edward thought.
"Well they'll just have to deal with it won't they! Sorry if I'm too much of a bother for you and your precious family, Edward!" I scoffed while crossing my arms over my chest.
I started to stomp out of the room when the window along the far wall caught my attention. I immediately froze up and glared at the reflection glaring right back at me from the glass.
She was beautiful, so beautiful that it burned my eyes just to look at her. She held all of the same features as me, except they were now sharp and angular, chiseled to perfection. Mahogany hair fell in waves that curled in at the ends and framed the pale heart-shaped face. Prominent cheekbones now held a pinkish tint to them, and the wide forehead that was once freckled with bumps of acne was now smooth like porcelain- a porcelain doll, that's what she looked like. Eyebrows arched like a small rainbow shone the same brilliant colour as her hair but seemed so much darker in contrast to the bright blue eyes that shone with confusion and anger.
Like a young child coming across a mirror for the first time, I stepped forward and lifted a hand to reach out to this girl, this girl that was a picture of what my plain features could look like. My hand touched the cool glass and met the other hand from the girl who stood in a mirror position.
"It's me..." I gasped. The reflected girl's mouth dropped open an stared back at me inquisitively and shocked.
"Edward! You said I would get to show her first ,why didn't you tell me!" The pixie whined and stomped her foot.
"Alice you're acting like a three year old, I don't think now is the time for that," Edward replied with a glare.
Alice huffed but ran over to my side anyways.
"You're gorgeous! You're even giving Rose a run for her money!" Alice cheered.
My head snapped towards the blonde haired beauty who was staring disdainfully in my direction and I scoffed.
"As if," I said and looked sadly back at my reflection.
Rose glared at the floor before stepping forward and resting a hand on my shoulder.
"No she's right," she said, and a small smile tilted the corner of her lips upward.
Everyone in the room looked shocked, no flabbergasted as they looked at Rose's hand resting on my shoulder.
"Rosie, baby are you all right?" The muscular giant stepped forward.
"Emmett I'm perfectly fine," Rose snapped, and the moment was gone.
"Rose?" I asked timidly.
Without moving her body, she turned her head back to look at me.
"Thank you," I said.
She nodded her head and walked back over to stand beside Emmett.
I looked towards the door again, before stepping back towards the family once again.
"I'm sorry, I may have just over-reacted a little bit there..." My eyes followed the pattern of tiles on the floor.
"No, darling it was perfectly acceptable if not a bit of an under-reaction considering the circumstances," the woman holding Carlisle's hand said.
I squirmed with all of the eyes on me, I wasn't comfortable with these people and all of the attention was really bothering me.
"Jasper?" Carlisle could sense my distress and gave the intimidating blonde a meaningful glance in my direction.
The uncomfortable feeling was replaced by comfort and love. I figured that this Jasper was using his power so I shot him a smile to show him I was grateful for his help, he nodded in reply.
The family sat me down then, and explained to me everything I needed to know in detail. The history of vampires, the Volturi, the treaty with the wolves, everything about Edward and Bella, and all of their stories about how they ended up here, powers included.
Two hours later I sat curled up on a leather couch, hugging myself closely. Carlisle has stepped out to join Edward and Bella saying that there was 'business' that had to be attended to.
Esme had gone outside to work on the flowers although god knows they were already blooming beautifully, Emmett and Rosalie were locked up in their room, and Alice was shopping for me online on the couch across from me. They didn't want me out in public until things got sorted out, already I had decided that we could tell Charlie that Alice took me to a professional for a makeover and he would probably buy it. After all, all of my features were the same simply sharpened and more defined. It was believable enough they all agreed.
Jasper swept into the room, a book in his hand and sat down beside me rather than Alice. I looked up at him, completely shocked.
He began to read the pages of his book, flipping through them at a surprisingly slow pace for a vampire.
"The lighting is better over here, don't seem so shocked by my decision to sit here," he said without looking up from his book.
"But you're a vampire, the lighting doesn't matter to you?" I meant to state, but it came out as a question.
Alice's head peeked over the top of the laptop and she nodded at Jasper with an eager look on her face, when she saw me looking though she quickly went back to the screen.
Jasper sighed and set the book on the coffee table in front of the couch.
"Well to be perfectly honest with you, your scent is still human but it doesn't call to me. I find it...relaxing and reassuring although if it makes you uncomfortable I understand," he admitted looking somewhat nervous.
"Oh, is that all? Well that's okay then, I was just worried because you weren't sitting near Alice," I reassured him.
He smiled gratefully at me and once again picked up his book.
Since everybody else was occupied, and trying to give me time to 'adjust' to my new body and abilities I decided now would be the perfect time to work on what Carlisle deemed 'my ability'.
It seemed simple enough, I could feel the elasticity of my so called 'shield'. It reminded me a lot of a blanket. I simply imagined myself whipping the blanket into the air and letting it land gently on top of my brain, then smoothing out the wrinkles until my mind was completely encompassed. When I had the blanket over top, I couldn't hear the thoughts of others and if I were to take it off then I would hear all of the voices. I took the blanket off and was not disappointed when thoughts drifted throughout my mind like a crowded mall: I could hear a lot of voices speaking and when I focused on just one, I could distinguish what it is they were thinking.
I focused on Alice, I focused on Alice very intently and was shocked when all of the other voices in my head faded and all I could hear was Alice. But not just her current thoughts, all of her thoughts. It was like I was seeing a huge filing cabinet, with various parts of her life labelled. I pulled out all of the thoughts about Jasper and decided to experiment. I found the blanket resting beneath the surface in Alice's mind, I pulled it out and wrapped it tightly around all thoughts of Jasper.
Alice's head snapped up once more and looked directly at Jasper the minute I was completed.
"Who are you?" she questioned.
Jasper's eyes darted to Alice's face and he dropped the book as he moved forward.
"Alice, darling what are you talking about?" he asked.
"Brooke, who is this man and how does he know my name?" she demanded of me looking frightened.
I decided I'd had enough of this game and pulled the blanket off of those thoughts, re-filing all of her thoughts of Jasper.
"Alice, please tell me you're kidding," Jasper pleaded.
"What? I...I'm not sure what happened." Alice looked questioningly around the room.
"I think it was me," I mumbled, unsure of how they would react.
"What do you mean?" Jasper asked.
"Well, I was just playing around with my...ability and I put all of Alice's thoughts about Jasper inside of what I refer to as 'the blanket'. It's the same blanket that I use to stop me from hearing your thoughts," I explained.
"You mean, you could see all of Alice's thoughts? Not just her current ones?" asked Jasper.
"Well, yeah I suppose so. It was like... I could see everything she ever thought if I focused on her hard enough and then I just blocked those certain thoughts out and she forgot you," I replied.
"It seems as though you're ability is a lot more diverse than we previously expected," Jasper stated.
"Yes! I can see Eleazar explaining her ability to Carlisle, although I still can't see her..."Alice mumbled.
"Alice? Could you please share?" I said.
"Right, well Brooke here has a shield but it's more than that I guess... She has the ability to block thoughts from your head. But I guess in order to be able to do that she needed to be able to read all of your thoughts, including current ones and so it's kind of like a two for one deal. It could be extremely dangerous though considering she could make someone forget who they were, or forget everything all together and it could be permanent. That's what Eleazar says when you meet him anyways. Oh! And then Carlisle has a theory that you technically have two powers because your human part had the shield, like Bella has a shield right now, and that the vampire side of you developed the whole mind reading thing," she babbled.
Finally I lifted my hand, the universal symbol for stop talking.
"I already know I have these things, I guess you just explained it in a way that it makes sense to everyone hopefully. Also, I think Carlisle's theory makes sense because Edward said he has difficulty reading my mind," I pointed out.
"I didn't think it was possible for someone to have two different abilities, I have never heard tell of it before," Jasper argued.
"Yes, well I didn't think it was impossible for vampires and werewolves to exist either but I faced a harsh reality too," I objected.
Jasper thought about that for a few seconds while Alice started bouncing on the spot looking giddy.
"I suppose you have a point there, Brooke," he agreed.
"Yay! I have a unique new best-friend that can show up Edward!" she cried.
I coughed into my hand and looked at Jasper for help. He took the hint thankfully.
"Darling, why don't we go upstairs for a little while and leave Brooke alone to let all of this settle in," he suggested.
I fought to keep the grimace from the suggestive meaning.
"Oh right! I forgot, you might want to get some rest Charlie still thinks you're staying over here. Silly me! You're still half human!" Alice giggled.
Her and Jasper ran up the stairs and I could hear their door close with a resounding click.
A plopped back down onto the couch and placed my head in my hands. Would I ever get the chance to be normal again? Probably not... But on the bright side, Charlie probably wouldn't mention my change. I could tell him I got a makeover and also that I was a growing girl going through puberty... he would believe it. Besides, we hadn't really hung out that much since I'd arrived here with all of the commotion and what not so he hadn't really looked at me that much I could always play it off like it's nothing.
I could definitely feel a headache coming on, a slight throbbing in my right temple but it was nothing I couldn't handle.
The front door slammed off of the wall and Edward stormed in with Carlisle right behind him. Edward snatched me up and ran up the stairs with me as Carlisle started hitting buttons that caused metal blinds to fall in front of all the windows and doors.
"What in the world is going on!" I screamed.
Edward set me down in Carlisle's office where everyone else quickly ran in.
"The wolves...Carlisle explained to them what had happened to you and we explained that we don't know exactly how the venom had affected her," Edward spat out.
"And...?" Rose gestured for him to continue explaining why we were all in lock down.
"And they want to destroy the threat, we told them that we had no part in transforming her but they wouldn't listen! They consider the treaty violated and Brooke an unknown threat, they're on their way to remove us all." Edward moved his fingers to rest on the bridge of his nose as his eyes scrunched up in concentration.
"Where's Bella?" I enquired nervously.
"At your house locked up with Charlie. I won't let her be taken down with us," Edward explained with a sigh.
"That's probably for the best," I agreed.
"So what are we going to do then?" Emmett asked, glancing around the room.
"We're going to try and stop them to explain everything properly," Carlisle answered.
"And if that doesn't work?" Jasper questioned.
"Then we fight," Edward stated.
The throbbing that started in my right temple quickly grew to a construction crew pounding away at my cranium.
Let me know what you think!