Now, to break the cliff hanger!
Disclaimer: I'm Stephenie Meyer! Yeah, right. I am so not Stephenie Meyer because if I was I wouldn't be writing Twilight fan fiction.
Kathleen's POV:
"Noooooo!!!" I screamed. I leapt at her, changing in mid air into a tiger. I knew if I didn't save him now, I would never heal. I had to save my Seth.
She had almost reached him when I hit her hard. I pinned her to the ground, ready to rip her to pieces as she in vain started to bite me and tried to push me off of her. What is this- oh no! Aro is so going to kick my-
I growled louder at the mention of Aro. Memories and pain came flying back but I was also still able to function in the present. I had been scared of Aro. Not scared for myself but for the ones I loved: Ebony at that time, Seth later on…
Speaking of Seth, I saw him staring at me, incredulous and yet appearing overjoyed. Then everyone else's thoughts hit me.
What the- is that who I think it is? Renesmee was thinking. Yes, it's Kathleen! She was definitely happy.
That was awesome! I will have to try wrestling her sometime. Jasper gets to be so boring after all these years. Emmett was predictably thinking.
The one that surprised me was Edward. "Kathleen, don't you dare hurt Jane. She's one of the Volturi, and we need to know why she came here and tried to attack you-know-who."
I was confused by him calling Seth you-know-who. Oh, I got it now. He probably thought that mentioning Seth's name would hurt me since Quil must be nearby now.
I surprised myself. I wasn't in any pain anymore from being away from Seth and not in any pain in fear that he would die because of me. I finally felt whole, like I could calm down.
Stay calm; I won't kill her, though I certainly want to. I thought to him. He let out a small sigh of relief and told the others to stay calm, I wasn't going to kill her.
I leapt off her and some of the other vampires pinned her down once again. I changed back, not wanting to have to communicate with people using my mind anymore. It slightly annoyed me for some strange reason.
I turned around to see Seth and Ebony staring at me. Seth backed up, appearing cautious, while Ebony was absolutely beaming. She ran up to me and pulled me into a tight hug. "Kathleen!" She cried out, overjoyed. "I've missed you so much! Why did you have to leave me? I'm so glad to see you again!"
"Eb, I can't breathe!" I croaked out while at the same time laughing, the incident reminding me of the time Seth had hugged me just as hard.
"Oops!" She gasped, letting me go and starting to laugh too. The vampires behind me were annoyed but I didn't care. I was glad to see someone that had been missing from my life for a while.
Our laughter finally started to die down and I looked her full on in the face. She flinched back slightly from my gaze. I started to listen to her thoughts before I heard her reciting songs from The Sound of Music over and over. I stared at her suspiciously. From my experience I knew that she was trying to hide something. I heard Edward and Seth, though slightly quieter, gasp. Ebony smiled, knowing what they were gasping about. "At least my eyes have a natural color when they change. Yours are the ugliest shade of yellow!" She started to giggle and lost her concentration on the song Do, a deer.
Kathleen is so going to kill me for telling them about- She quickly caught her slip up and started to sing The Song That Never Ends in her head. I glared at her, guessing at what she was hiding. I then heard something Edward thought that froze me in place.
So she does know at least some things if she's already changing. I wonder when she'll learn her whole identity- He thought to himself, pondering, before he recognized his mistake when my eyes widened in surprise. He soon thought about something in some foreign language but the damage had already been done.
"Ebony!" I yelled, shocking her. She had gotten really immersed in her silent singing. "How much did you tell them?" Jasper started to flinch from the anger I was emitting.
"Ummm…" She started to say, singing louder in her head. I glared at her, waiting.
She had almost given in when Edward's thoughts popped into my head. She's showing more signs than before. Catnias are so annoying- His eyes widened in fear when he saw my expression from Seth's thoughts, and Seth was surprised too. I turned on Edward, who was holding Jane's arms down.
"You. You knew all along, and yet you didn't say a word! I didn't even know anything about my past and yet you knew! I didn't even remember my rank until now you idiot." Ebony glared right along with me, realizing that Edward had only wanted to confirm his suspicions.
"What's the problem with that? That's one less thing you have to remember. Now, if you'll excuse me and my brothers, we're going to 'have a talk' with Jane." Edward replied. He nodded to his brothers who quickly lifted Jane (who loudly started to scream and squirm with no success) and ran out of the room through the door.
"What was that about? And what are you leader of?" Alice had spoken up, bouncing over to me. "I think several of us want to know that."
I looked around to see that she was correct. Everyone except for Ebony, who already knew, was staring at me with interest. Seth appeared to be unhappy. I listened to his thoughts and gasped. I hadn't realized-
"Kathleen, I'm sorry for what I did for you to hate me." He said, looking away. "I don't know what, but obviously I did something. I better go so you can be happy." He started to walk away through the front door.
I couldn't let him get away. "Wait- I don't hate you Seth! You misunderstood. All I wanted to do is protect you. At the time it was the only way I could keep you alive." I found that I had my arm reaching after his retreating figure. I couldn't go through that pain again…
He stopped, his frame filling the door frame. "What do you mean, you left me to keep me alive?" He said, pain filling his voice and his thoughts.
"I know it caused you pain; it caused pain for me too. But I thought it wouldn't be as bad as you dying slowly. Jane was going to bite you. I couldn't let you die—I would die too." I said quietly, feeling foolish. "I should have known, but I wouldn't let myself comprehend that you would be hurt too."
"You feel that strongly for someone you barely know?" Alice spoke up again, still annoyingly interested. I felt myself blush. How was I going to explain this?
Luckily Ebony came to my rescue. "Well, it's a complicated thing. It's similar to their imprinting," she indicated Seth and Jacob, "but in a way stronger. When it happens we feel… more passionate. They are our soul mates in the way that we will always love them in the way of a lover, while they just want the person they imprint upon to be happy no matter what. We want them to be happy but we are in love, not just imprinted." I smiled at Ebony gratefully. I couldn't have said it better myself.
Seth had now turned towards me. "So you do love me." I saw a relieved smile fill his face.
I smiled at him. "Yes, I do love you. Do you forgive me for hurting you?"
"Of course." He immediately replied, not hesitating at all. At that I flung myself into his arms, totally content. Now everything was alright. Well, everything except the danger we were still in. I was content to forget that right now as I cuddled closer to him.
"Ah hem." Alice coughed, bringing my attention back to everyone else. I realized how close I was to Seth's face- oh. Oops. I felt myself blush furiously. I'd have to pay better attention in the future to what I was doing when I drifted off like that with Seth. I had been about to kiss him right in front of everybody. Ebony had been dead on with her explanation though she had never had that happen with anybody. Seth was looking down at me, appearing a bit surprised and annoyed at Alice's interruption too. His thoughts confirmed that. I couldn't help but giggle. We weren't so different when it came down to Alice.
Alice continued, staring at me. "You still haven't answered my first question." Her foot was now vigorously bouncing up and down impatiently.
"I guess I'd better explain then. I still don't know everything but thanks to time and Edward's thoughts I do remember several things. Some you have already witnessed, like my shape shifting, mind reading, and foretelling abilities. You may not have known about the other two but I was- and still am- using them constantly. The only problem with those two is that when I use them my eyes turn amber so it's pretty obvious." I paused for a moment, seeing Alice jumping up and down in her impatience to say something.
"What can you see? Can you see vampires, shape shifters, Nessie, humans…?" She blurted out. She was acting like she had a huge sugar rush. Nessie and Bella were actually having trouble holding back their giggles.
"I can see humans, shape shifters and Nessie, but vampires are just blurry and if I try to focus on them they give me a huge headache." I replied, seeing Alice's bouncing slow slightly. "Now, for the rest. I knew that I was some sort of high ranking person in our shape shifting society, which consists of many different kinds of shape shifters. Most of our kind belongs to one of four groups depending on their animal preference- cat, dog, bird, or dragon, strange as that last option sounds. We can also change into other forms but we usually don't. We can live forever if we really wanted to, but usually go into a sleep-like mode after a couple hundred years or so. For each group there are several higher ranking officials and one nia as they are called. That title is inherited through blood relation. The ranking goes by nis and nias, with nis being anyone who is not the nia. The dog group, because of a dog's pack nature, actually has two nias- a female and a male. Because of Edward's previous knowledge- I don't know how he acquired it- he recognized that I was the catnia as it is called. Do you all understand that part?" I paused, letting the large piece of knowledge I had just given them sink in. After a moment they all nodded.
I continued on. "From my memories and the help of Jane's annoying thoughts I also discovered that the reason I had amnesia was a certain vampire you all know: Aro. Somehow he, probably with help, penetrated my mind's defenses. I kind of have a back-up system to hide my thoughts the first time my defenses are breached, which is amnesia so my memories are kept safe. After time, memories and abilities start to come back. I don't know why or how they are looking for me, but now all of you are in danger, especially if Jane finds her way back to the other Volturi if she escapes." I finished, looking at all of them. Seth had hugged me tighter while the others were staring at me, shock on their faces.
It was quiet for what felt like a long time until Nessie spoke up. "Well, welcome back." Everyone else started to laugh at the late welcome.
"We didn't really welcome you very well, did we?" Alice was grinning. "One vamp aiming for Seth, Seth thinking you hated him, me immediately asking you about everything… Yep, such a nice welcome."
I smiled slightly. "I'm not too worried about it. I think you all not suddenly yelling at me for being such an idiot was a great enough welcome. Besides, I might have not made it in time if it weren't for Quil and Clare finding me in the middle of the forest and Quil keeping me in one spot long enough for me to be able to have a new vision alerting me to the change in the future." I grinned wider. "Clare was cute, I've got to admit."
"She is cute and friendly too." Nessie piped up, smiling a bit herself.
Kathleen, you should hear this. Edward's mind immediately caught my attention. I listened to his mind while trying to keep track of the current conversation.
"I told you, I told you! Demetri didn't say too much about it." Jane was saying, still being pinned down by the Cullen brothers. "All he said was that after we left her, hoping that we would be able to get to her later since she was off into a no-man's land in her mind, that he was able to track her. He was saying that until approximately two weeks ago. About that time he got really annoyed, saying that she had 'disappeared'. We weren't supposed to go back to Aro without the girl, so we searched for her scent and other signs of her passing. The only reason why I suddenly decided on attacking the shape shifter was because he absolutely reeked of her. Now let me go before Demetri starts to wonder why I haven't come back yet to where we were going to meet." Jane was glaring at Edward, Jasper, and Emmett, still trying to escape.
I realized after Jane stopped speaking for the moment that the conversation had stopped. I looked up from the ground that I had been staring vaguely at to see everyone was looking expectantly at me. The vampires appeared puzzled and worried. Searching their thoughts I found out their cause of concern. Jane had just been in their range of hearing, while the werewolves and Nessie hadn't quite been able to hear it. I quickly explained for the others, and their faces also turned to that of concern.
"What are we going to do?" Ebony finally said, the usual happiness lacking in her voice. "That means that the rest of the Volturi aren't going to be far behind. I don't think any of us want an encounter with the Volturi."
"I agree. What are we going to do?" Alice piped up, amazingly still having a bit of bounciness left in her voice.
"I don't know. None of the other catnias had this problem, as our secret was only leaked at the end of the last one's reign and the Volturi only acted upon it when they recognized that there was a new catnia." I said, thinking over my knowledge. Another strange thing about being a catnia was that we were the only nias that had the previous knowledge of our predecessors like they were our own experiences. Dragonnias knew their past but it was more like it was someone else's experience, and they didn't know all of it all the time.
My train of thought was broken by a sudden vision. I could tell that it was in the near future, and we were still all in the same room, so it was probably within minutes. The door opened and Embry (as I guessed from Quil's and other people's minds) poked his head through with another tribal boy in tow, around my age. "Hey, guess what-" He started to say, but I didn't pay attention to what he was saying. The vision's center was on the second boy, who was actually pretty tall for his age. I could tell that he was a new werewolf which alerted me to something that I thought that I should be realizing right now. He looked up and his eyes locked and softened instantly at sight of someone near me. The focus of the vision turned, and Ebony was staring back at him, and it suddenly hit me. I felt annoyance and anger at the same time. I was the slightly older twin and felt very protective towards my sister. I realized that love could be a great thing, but it did have its toll.
I emerged from my vision to see my sister and Seth alike staring at me. I realized that I had an angry sneer on my face and quickly replaced it with a false smile. They both saw right through it.
"Kathleen, what's wrong?" They both said at the same time, concern clear on both their faces. Seth hugged me tighter while Ebony thought don't worry about anything; we've got your back.
Good; they thought I was angry and upset over the Volturi. I relaxed into Seth's arms, appreciating his warmth and love. Everyone else was now discussing among themselves while the Cullen boys were still interrogating Jane. I felt that maybe my foresight had been wrong for once.
I was soon proved wrong when the door opened and Embry's head appeared. "Hey, guess what-" Darn it, why did everything bad happen to me?
Finally done!! I hope this chapter isn't too overwhelming or random. I had such a bad writer's block right after the concert. It was a very tiring weekend, and I've been trying to get schoolwork done ASAP before typing this. I hope that I will be able to update much faster after June 12th (or whatever day that week is Friday; school will be out then and finals over!!! :D ). I have started work on chapter 12 so don't despair; I shouldn't take so long to post it as this chapter. I still need ideas for another fanfic I can work on, and please, please, review! I love them all though often times I don't have enough time to reply to them. They all encourage me. :) Thank you all for bearing with my slow updates!