Temper, Temper: Chapter Fifteen: A*
Memories of her time with the Volturi came flooding into her head, triggering her famous temper and making her fingers twitch as she fought to the natural instinct to phase.
"No, I can't say that I have imparticular" said Alex, opening her eyes and falsely smiling at the person who caused a lot of misery in her life. "Where's Aro?"
"We haven't missed the fact that somebody has been watching Aro's decisions, and he sadly could not make it – pity" Jane stared harshly at Alex for the majority of her sentence, but she cast an angry flicker of a look to Alice halfway through.
"Pity" Alex repeated before waiting for the one of the Volturi to say something else which would set the fuse to her temper alight.
Alec watched his sister as she paused, thinking carefully about the words she was going to say next. Demetri did the same; Felix on the other hand was merely looking at Alex, tilting his head to the side with an amused expression on his face while he studied her.
"It's been two months, almost, and since this unfortunate mess…" Jane gestured behind the Cullen's at the fire, on which pieces of vampires were burning, making the fire smoke, spit and crackle. "…is over with, I don't see any reason why we shouldn't perform the task of testing Felix's puppy presently. Killing two birds with one stone if you will"
"Aro would want to be here" Alex unwisely stated, suddenly her body was raked with pain as Jane glared furiously at her. The pain lasted mere minutes but it reminded Alex exactly who was in control here.
"You don't speak for the Volturi" She spat, "Luckily we haven't started the test yet-"
"We'll let that one slide" Felix added, watching Alex as she stood back up again, taking a deep breath to soothe her muscles. The wolf's display merely made him more confident that Alex would fail any test that they gave her.
"Aro will be informed of the result…you may even get the chance to tell him yourself" Alex piped up before falling silent again and waiting once more for Jane to speak.
"Any display of anger, discomfort or frustration. You fail. Turn into a wolf. You fail. Any answering back. You fail. Disobey anything we say. You fail" Jane decided the rules and nodded to confirm them.
"How long will it be for?" Edward asked eager to know the exact details. Jane merely smiled at him. A normal smile is meant to comfort those you smile at, this smile did anything but comfort the Cullen's. Alex was on trial, and Jane was the judge, jury and executioner.
"Let's begin"
Felix and Demetri clapped their hands together with eager smiles as they took a few step backs to see what would happen. Jane looked at Alex for a while before she raised her finger and beckoned someone forward.
Lashing her head around, she watched as Emmett walked forward calmly. He had his usually laid back expression on his face and shot Alex a comforting smile before standing where Jane pointed him to.
"…pain" Jane whispered
Alex's mind screamed blue murder as she saw one of her best friends, crumple to the floor writhing in pain and struggling to breath. 'Don't react she wants you to react, if you do it'll all be for nothing. Calm down. It'll stop now' Alex told herself, but her eyes and squeezed shut tightly.
"Open your eyes" Jane said, obediently Alex did as she was told but her face remained perfectly complacent, antithesising the screaming voice in her head, 'How did she know I'm good friends with Emmett?'
A twitch ran through Alex's left arm, and she was relieved when the pain and torture Emmett was put through ended, and she had managed to keep her calm throughout it all.
'Alex: One, Volturi: Zero' Her monologue cheered out, making Alex's lips tweak into an easy smile while she watched Emmett give her a wink and walk back over to hold Rosalie's hand which had become preoccupied with biting her nails.
Alex didn't say anything; she once again tried to relax her brain before it could remember what Jane had put Emmett through moments ago.
"Demetri" Jane motioned the strong vampire forward, and in a remarkable sense of coincidence, he just stood extremely close to her, invading her personal space in the exact same way Edward had when the Cullen's were training her.
But it wasn't Edward standing in front of her now.
It was Demetri. One of the Volturi guards, one of the members who had prevented her from leaving, one of the members who had stolen her from her home, and now he was here, taunting her with a wicked smile just millimetres from her face.
Again, the red haze of anger prickled around her fighting to get out. Demetri's red eyes were staring at her, unblinking as if trying to tease her instincts into breaking, allowing the livid wolf he knew was inside, to be unleashed.
Alex was unmoving though, despite her angry tirade of though smashing the walls of her skull, she had fought tooth and nail to keep the composure everyone was praying for her to maintain.
It looked as though she might be winning that battle.
Jane called off Demetri and Alex couldn't help a small victorious smile to stretch her lips over her cheeks when she saw the façade of Felix's calm exterior to flicker and momentarily reveal a frustrated expression.
Jane also showed a small element of perplexity when Alex's composure was still in perfect place but when Demetri joined their ranks again, an idea crossed her mind.
Jane motioned Alec in the direction of the Alex and suddenly her senses failed her. Rather than seeing the Volturi in front of her, Alec's desensitising mist had enveloped her, blackening out her vision and plugging her ears so she could not hear.
Alex didn't know whether the loss of her senses made her lose the ability to keep track of time or whether she was in-fact stood there for a long time. Now she was beginning to panic, senses were the main thing people relied on for survival and now her own had been snatched away.
The mist was now extracted from her ears and a chilling voice replaced it.
"How does it feel to know that you're going to be back, with me, in Volterra? Back doing our dirty work?"
It was Felix's voice and when it coursed into her head, Alex stiffened; surely the Volturi couldn't just take her back? Aro had said she could have a fair test.
'Aro's not here now kid, you're playing by their rules. They can just say you phased and lie'
Now Alex doubted everything and it was making her frustrated, Felix's voice earned her attention before her hand could make to curl into a fist.
"Did you make a lot of friends here? People you think care about you, they don't care. They've all gone back to their normal lives now, glad to be rid of you"
Felix had done the worst thing possible. Alex may not be able to control her anger, but she had made friends here and although he tried to manipulate her into thinking she wasn't cared for, her strong willed mind knew he was lying.
Even if he wasn't and she was in fact being stolen back to their prison, why should she give him the satisfaction of proving his lack of faith in her control correct.
One person cared for her more than anything, she didn't want him to but no number of lying Volturi guards could sway her certainty of what imprinting was. Despite Alex's rejection of it.
Felix carried on with his attempts to anger her, but Alex was calm now – the faith she had in knowing her friends did care for her made her ignore the statements. Emmett had just taken three minutes of Jane's torture for her without so much as a protesting word – How could he not care for her?
Suddenly the mist was lifted and Alex was able to see again.
"Well, apparently the Cullen's are better dog trainers than Felix" Jane stated with a bored expression, not even looking at Felix. Alex couldn't resist though; her captivator had an expression of pure rage on his face.
Without thinking, Alex beamed at him, her smile revealing the set of pearl white teeth behind her pink lips. She had passed.
Jane had then gone onto talking about the newborn army, and Alex winced when Felix stormed past her after being ordered to deal with the one the Cullen's had missed.
After a shot while the Volturi left, it allowed Alex to unleash her pure joy. She launched into the air, raising her fist in triumph,
"Yes!" She yelled out loudly "A-Star for Alex!", Emmett had scooped her up when her feet were returning to the ground. He jostled her happily,
"You did it Socks! You really did it!"
When Alex's feet did hit the floor finally, her face dropped as realization hit.
"Jacob!" She gasped while brushing the Cullen's congratulating hugs off and launching forward becoming a wolf again and racing to Billy's house, stampeding through the forest at great speed.