{… "What would you have me do?" I asked, following her through a long hallway toward a bright room.
"Dr. Virgil Stein. Medical Doctor, Surgeon, finished medical school in four years," she rambled off, not even turning to look at me. "Like me, you're a problem solver. I went over your career as a practitioner – both on and off the grid. You're brilliant-yet-dirty. I'm in need of your expertise, as I cannot finish the project I'm working on without help."
"What kind of project? You haven't even given me a quote – and I do expect to be payed, alien or not." We entered the room, which turned out to be a small operating room. It was pristine, the instruments and operating table were a shiny metallic color. She turned to me and cocked an eyebrow.
"I'm no alien," she replied. "As for payment…how does immortality sound?" I could feel my eyebrows rise as I stared her down.
"You're serious?" I questioned after she didn't elaborate. She gave no response to my question. "That's…fine." I finally got out, sounding a lot less enthusiastic than I actually was.
She handed me a folder that I didn't see her carry in. "Be here tomorrow at 8:00 AM." She strolled out of the room without a second glance…"}
-Chapter 3: Captive Audience-
The jet engine saturated the cabin in white noise and I found myself staring through Jasper's forehead as he conversed with Alice. Their voices mixed with the engine noise and my eyes drooped. How long had it been since my last injection? I didn't juice up at the hotel, so it must have been this morning – or yesterday morning, since it was past midnight now. I opened up my backpack and pulled out my syringe case, ejecting one. The translucent orange fluid swirled inside the clear glass tube.
The formula didn't really need to be orange, but I find it's easier to color code them so I can keep track. HLV, HLV2, and its iterations get a blue hue; this one gets orange. I haven't actually come up with a cool name or code-word for it yet, so for now it's just the orange formula.
"Why don't you try to get some real sleep, Emily?" Ryan asked, moving to the seat beside mine as he stared at me with his golden gaze. It didn't take all too long for the much cooler-looking red hue of his eyes to fade from his diet of animal blood. His thoughts pointed out the significant dark circles on my face and the red blotches on the whites of my eyes. They gave vampires a run for their money.
"I've gone almost a month without sleep, Ryan." I mumbled, tapping the side of the syringe to float the air bubbles to the top. I squeezed the plunger and a few orange drips slid down the needle. "If I stop the injections now, so close to the Volturi conflict, I might as well not even show up to fight."
There won't be a fight, Alice thought to me. I pushed the needle through my bicep and injected the serum. A sigh left my lips as the haze and sluggishness lifted from my mind – I felt alert and alive like no cup of coffee – or twenty – could provide.
"I've seen your visions, Alice," I said, clipping the empty syringe back in place. "Mine, as well. Just because you don't see anything happening, doesn't mean it won't. Aro knows how your ability works; it's easily circumvented – Victoria is proof of that."
"There will be a fight?" Nahuel asked, shuffling back toward our group and looking absolutely uncomfortable as he moved down the aisle. He flinched as the plane jolted slightly.
"No," Alice answered, giving me a glare and mentally telling me to shut up. "Once the Volturi have seen you, there will be no threat of exposure from Renesmee and other vampire-human hybrids. He won't have a reason to fight us."
"I can give you several." I bit back, rolling my eyes and looking out the window. From our height, I could see the edges of sunlight peaking up over the horizon. We were somewhere over Mexico, but I wasn't sure where exactly.
"You think they'll start a fight anyway?" Jasper questioned softly.
I nodded. "From what I understand, they feel threatened by the size of your…our…family," I corrected myself as per Alice's mental demand. "They already wanted Alice and Edward for their abilities. Then Bella comes along with her mental shield and they're even more envious. Finally, Ryan and I come along – not to mention the wolves and even Renesmee.
"Like all those with power, Aro will fear the loss of that power. As far as we know, he has no idea what Ryan and I can really do; but when he does figure it out, I guarantee he'll put everything he has into acquiring…or destroying us."
"I would have seen him decide…" Alice spoke, mostly to herself.
"You rely on your ability too much, Alice," I shook my head. "It may not turn into a fight this time, but this cannot end peacefully with Aro running the show."
"Just don't turn this into a fight, Emily," Ryan said to me aloud. "You know I love you, but we don't need your theatrics. This is more than you and me; you start something with these Volturi and the whole family will have to get involved."
"Whatever," I huffed. Ryan really did know me. "I'll let Huilen and Nahuel try to convince them first; I'll even let them make the first move when Aro decides he doesn't care. But if and when they attack, I call dibs on Alec – I need his ability to complete my witch twin set." Ryan smiled and nodded while Jasper let out a small laugh, before pulling Alice onto his lap.
Ryan's thoughts drifted back to November – to one of the few…altercations I had with our new family. It was just past my birthday and I had begun testing the orange formula on myself, to see how it affected my conscious state.
"Ryan!" Renesmee bounced up to me with a grin on her face. She reached forward and placed her too-warm hand on my face.
I smiled. Apart from Emmet, Renesmee was the only one who didn't mind being levitated. I had been getting a better handle on my control – both bloodlust and telekinesis – and had taken to floating several things at once to help my concentration. The little hybrid considered it less of a control exercise and more of a play time for herself. "Of course," I responded to her mental inquiry as Bella nodded her agreement. "Let's go fly!"
"Faster!" Nessie squealed from over fifty feet in the air. I was levitating a few feet off the ground as well; it was a definite challenge, but if my sister could do it, so could I. Speaking of Emily, the heavy metal music mixed with a roaring engine signaled her approach.
"Maybe later, squirt," I told her, taking her down to the ground gently before I touched down. The engine and music grew louder before being cut off, leaving only the steady heartbeat and breathing of Emily. The door of her car creaked open and slammed shut. "Why don't you go find your mom?" She darted off to the mansion at my suggestion and I followed slowly after her.
As I strolled through the back door I caught sight of my sister heading into the kitchen, looking very distracted. I darted in after her, having absolutely nothing else to do. Being around Emily was practically painless now – thirst wise. I still got uncomfortable around small groups of other humans, but one could say I was 'acclimated' to my dear sister's scent. Her back was to me as I glanced at her, but I could tell she was holding something in her left hand.
"Another weapon of mass destruction?" I joked. She jumped, as though I startled her. But it was nearly impossible to startle Emily; what with the mind reading, emotion sensing, and future telling. I put on my serious face and walked up to her. "What's the deal, Em?"
"Nothing," she answered, shaking her head and turning around to face me. She closed the round metal object in her hand with a snap and put it back in the pocket of her pants. "Just running a few tests."
"On yourself, you mean," I concluded, letting out a sigh and running my hand across my forehead. "What in the world has you so distracted? And…was that a pocket watch I saw?"
Even beyond the whole 'serial killer' quirk, my sister was an odd one. She's overconfident and malicious – downright volatile – yet loyal to those she deems 'friend.' Another oddity of hers was her hate of clocks and timepieces. As most people know, very nearly all clocks and watches will either gain or lose seconds – or even minutes – as time goes on. While that's mostly OK for the average citizen, Emily cannot stand that imperfection. She can recognize the subtle flaws in the design, and her ability pulls at her mind to fix it.
Needless to say, the only clock Emily can normally stand is the one on her phone – or anything synced through a satellite.
"It meets my expectations," Emily smirked at me, but it did not reach her eyes. "I'm using it to monitor my body's reactions to a new serum." The other vampires in the house all paused to listen into the conversation.
"Of course you are," I rolled my eyes, but could not help but worry. Emily was a fucking genius at chemistry, but it didn't sit with me that she would use herself as her own guinea pig. "What are you testing, and shouldn't you be doing this in your lab?" Brock Labs wasn't exactly booming commercially, but Emily spent several hours a week there – sometimes a whole weekend – doing her own science projects. I'd never actually been there, however; she was very secretive when she wanted to be.
"It's more of a …field test," she replied, shrugging as she opened up the refrigerator and extracted a bottle of SoBe. "I'm working on a way to make sleep obsolete. Right now I'm on…thirty-nine hours, twenty-one minutes, and eight seconds awake." She pulled out her gold pocket watch to verify her timing before clicking it shut.
"Is that safe?" I asked, raising my eyebrows and giving my sister a hard look.
"That's what this test is for," she shrugged again and popped the top off the drink. She brought it to her lips before cursing. "Fuck. Drinking caffeine would kind of void the results." I think she was talking mostly to herself as she poured out the liquid down the sink. "It's not perfected yet," she continued, moving the empty bottle between her hands and turning to face me, "but constant injections should keep my brain firing at…nearly full speed." She continued looking at the wall behind me, appearing in a daze.
A hiss from the living room interrupted our conversation; it was obviously loud enough for Emily to hear, as she clenched her jaw and stormed out of the kitchen. I followed her into the living room to find Rosalie giving her a look of disgust mixed with some other emotion. My sister glared back at her evilly, but didn't have her trademark smirk on her face this time. Edward and Bella were outside with Renesmee, but nobody else was home – not even Emmet or Esme. If this turned into a fight, it would be up to me to keep Emily from killing Rosalie.
"I'm not the one with the apparent human fetish," Emily said aloud, responding to Rosalie's thoughts. "I would have thought you'd already gotten your rocks off with Bella and her demon spawn."
Rosalie growled in response and leaned forward. She appeared to be struggling not to crouch down and attack.
"Right. You caught me, Rosalie," Emily drawled out, sarcasm oozing, "I'm only sticking around because I want one of you to bite me." She shifted the bottle she still held into her left hand – her right hand, now freed, was twitching toward her holstered knife.
"Emily…" I warned, inching as close as I dared.
Edward and Bella blurred into the room, the front door crashing against the wall as it swung open. Renesmee was clinging to Bella's back as she looked on at the two hotheads.
"Rosalie," Edward said in a quiet voice, "just let it go. We all need to calm down." Bella's eyes darted from Emily to Rosalie and back again, trying to figure out what was going on, no doubt.
"What she's doing to her own body…" Rosalie cut herself off, her growling quieting down and her posture straightening. "She could be so much more than this. She could be-"
"Normal?" Emily finished, her voice sharp.
Rosalie nodded. Emily's body shuddered and the mansion literally vibrated, causing the windows to rattle and the floors to groan. In a split second, Rosalie's body was flung backward and pinned to the far wall of the living room. Emily walked up to Rosalie's immobile form and glared up at her.
"I don't think you'd care to see my definition of normal," Emily said putting her head in her hand. She looked absolutely exhausted. Edward made a move forward, but I told him to stop through my thoughts. Emily's shield was up – the nearly invisible film subtly distorting the light around her – and it would be useless to try to stop her.
Rosalie said nothing, but looked absolutely terrified. She'd seen what my sister could do first hand, sure, but being her victim was another thing entirely. She was completely helpless; not exactly a common occurrence for a vampire.
"You keep visualizing Bella's desire to become a vampire," Emily continued, tilting her head to the side and grinning wider. "I think you're under a misconception. You see, I don't need to ask or beg to get what I want. I don't currently have need to be a vampire, and so I am not." She moved the bottle out of her hand and suspended it in the air between the two of them. "And what I do with my own body is my business."
Rosalie said nothing and Emily paused, probably listening in to her thoughts. Suddenly, Rosalie was screaming and writhing in pain. Edward and I bolted forward to restrain Emily, but we were thrown back and pinned to our own walls. Bella was pushed out of the room along with Renesmee, who had tears streaming down her face as she looked at Rosalie's squirming and shrieking form.
I looked back at Rosalie and noticed that it was not Jane's power that Emily was using on her. No, it was much worse. Tiny fissures cracked up along her arms to her face, leaking out venom. The venom, though, was not falling to the floor; it was flowing through the air, funneling into the SoBe bottle hovering in space like it was caught in a tractor beam. Once it was full, Rosalie's form dropped to the ground and her screaming turned to whimpers.
Emily grabbed the bottled venom and twisted the cap onto it, holding it close to her face and tilting it back and forth. The pale yellow color sizzled and rocked inside the glass container like hot grease. She placed the bottle down on the floor and walked out of the house – her heartbeat fading away as Edward and I slid down the wall, finally released.
"Yes," I said to Ryan, coming out of his memory, "well, at least we discovered that formula induced aggressive behavior under intense emotions. I fixed the glitch, don't worry." I smirked at him.
"I'm surprised you're still walking around," Ryan shook his head at me, trying to suppress a small smile. "Emmet was absolutely pissed at what you did."
I sighed. "I did apologize," I winced, "and to tell you the truth, for some fucked up reason I think Rosalie actually respects me more, now." Even with the mind reading, I don't think I'll ever fully understand Rosalie.
Emmet wasn't the only one who was upset, though. I suppose it had never really sunken into the Cullen's minds that I really was that volatile, as Ryan described me. Sure, I was a badass serial killer who killed several newborn vampires, but my madness had never been directed at one of them before. When I eventually came back to the mansion a few days later, their thoughts and emotions were filled with fear and anger and disbelief. It was quite comical from an outside perspective, I'm sure; a large group of vampires fearing for their lives from a single human girl.
In a way, I was grateful for Irena's tattle-tale adventure to the Volturi. Once there was another enemy to fight – another trial to face – they stopped looking at me like I was a monster.
End notes: This one's a day early, but whatever.
Also, I saw the last (hopefully) Twilight movie. I've never actually expressed my dislike of the films online, but I thought you should know I thought Breaking Dawn part 2 was horrible. I love the books and hate the movies (though that's a pretty popular trend) and this last one was way too rushed. It felt like the director was sprinting through the 'boring parts' to get to the fight at the end.