Chapter 6 – One less Cullen
I jolted as Emmett's large hand shook me softly, "Were here" he said almost in a whisper.
I looked out of the window and yawned, it was dark and the clock read 3:30am. "Where are we?" I asked him still staring out through the window.
"In a little town called Bergen, we bought this house for Alice and Jasper but they've never stayed here" he said pointing towards a large house covered in glass just like the one in Forks.
"It's beautiful" I said matching his quiet tone.
As we walked in through the door of the beautiful glass house Emmett held out his arm in front of me and looked up at the ceiling.
"Upstairs" he said almost silently.
I stared up at the ceiling and gasped in surprise as Alice came running down the stairs followed by mum.
"Mum, Alice!" I shouted happily as I ran over to them hugging them both.
"Finally, Edward said you were going to come to Norway. We got to the airport as soon as we could and got the plane that was obviously 10 minutes before yours" Alice said, she nodded at Emmett and he nodded back to her.
"Are you with anyone else?" I asked as a faint smell of human passed my nose.
Alice turned to mum and mum's happy smile faded, she turned around with her back to us and stared out of the window.
"Mum? What's the matter" I asked a little scared as I stepped forward and placed my hand on her shoulder.
"Afton . . . bite Charlie" Alice said, her tone sounded so sad that it was almost alien.
I gasped and then ran up the stairs, everyone followed me and I headed to the room where I could hear low sharp breaths. I opened the door and when I saw Charlie lying on bed writhing around in pain my heart just about stopped beating.
"No . . . no . . . no" was I all I could say as I went to kneel down next to his head. "He doesn't deserve this!" I screamed as I grabbed a hold of his hand, I pressed it too my cheek and the warm feeling I normally felt when I touched him had vanished.
"I don't want this for him either" mum said kneeling down next to me.
"I won't even be able to see him will I . . . because of the way I smell" I said pressing his hand too my face a little harder.
"I think you will be alright, you have a faint smell of wolf in you now so you won't smell appetising but Edward will obviously want to keep you away from him" Alice said sympathetically.
I shook my head slowly and got to my feet; I sighed loudly and headed towards the door. I walked down the stairs at a normal pace and sat down on the sofa, I lay down with a pillow under my head and I was just about to fall to sleep when my phone started to vibrate in my back pocket.
I took it out and pressed accept, "Hello?" I said into the receiver.
"Renesmee, where are you and Emmett" said Esme frantically down the phone.
"Were in Norway, Alice, Mum and Charlie are here with us" I said.
"Oh no, you must tell the other's that you need to leave immediately. Myself and Edward were attacked by two vampires whilst we were driving away from Forks, we managed to take care of one but the other got away and the one we managed to take care of had a list, it has names and places of where the Volturi are splitting up to search and the house in Norway is on this list" she said, her usual mothering tone had turned into pure panic.
I gasped and dropped the phone, I ran upstairs back into the room Charlie was in.
"The Volturi are coming!" I shouted.
Emmett, Alice and mum all turned to me quickly, "Esme just called, they found a list with names and places on it and this house is on the list! They could already be on their way" I said trying to breathe easily.
"We can't move Charlie like this, what do we do" mum said looking back at Charlie with worry across her face.
"They're here, three of them" Alice suddenly said, she seemed to be staring out of the window and focusing on something in the distance.
"Me, Alice and Emmett can go mum, you should stay here with Charlie" I said staring at her.
"No, let me go Ness, if anything happens to you I'll never forgive myself" she said standing up.
"Mum, look at Charlie, he needs you and I'll be fine, I promise" I said, trying to reassure her.
She sighed and then nodded, "Alice, Emmett try to keep her safe" she said turning to look at them, they both nodded and I went to kiss her on the cheek.
Emmett, Alice and I ran down the stairs into the front garden within the blink of an eye, the vampires were within range of my hearing now so they were pretty close. Before I knew what had happened I saw Emmett catch a truck that came flying towards us, Alice had disappeared and I was left standing looking around my surroundings.
I heard almost silent footsteps on the ground and it seemed like the vampire was circling me, I crouched down slightly and waited for the vampire to attack.
They finally attacked and I could see that it was a girl with straight red hair similar to my own; her mouth was pulled back over her mouth as she snarled and her eyes were a dark pure red. I somersaulted out of the way – this wolf thing was starting to come in handy, even though I doubted Jacob could pull off any of the flips and tricks I was doing – and ended up standing next to the house. The girl pounced for me again and went flying straight into the glass window, she got up instantly and this time I pounced into her, we rolled around on the floor and I felt a strong cold hand around my neck. I managed to scratch her cheek with my nails but that wasn't enough to make her let go, even though vampires didn't really need to breath I hadn't really mastered it yet, whenever I tried to hold my breath longer than 3 minutes I would feel queasy and sometimes fall down unexpectedly.
"YOU'RE NEVER GOING TO WIN!" she screamed in my face.
I suddenly felt a wave of strength pass through me. I roared and easily pushed the girl off of me; I snarled and sunk my teeth into her neck. She screamed in pain and attempted to bite me back but I was suddenly too quick for her, she looked confused and angry at the same time.
"Back off!" I shouted as I threw a punch at her, it hit her just below her nose and she stumbled to the floor.
She scrambled too her feet and something kept urging me to finish her off, I grabbed her arm and locked it into place easily. "Leave my family alone!" I shouted and twisted it quickly, there was a loud snap and the vampire screamed.
I got up and pulled her by her unbroken arm into the kitchen, I searched quickly for some matches. I found some in a cupboard which was fully stocked with food which would never get eaten.
With the matches in my hand and the vampires arm in the other I started walking towards the broken window, "Renesmee! What do you think you're doing" I heard my mother shout at me.
"Making sure she doesn't come back" I said still walking towards the window.
Mum ran up to me and grabbed my shoulder, "What's gotten into you, you seem different. You would never be doing anything like this if we were back at home" she said sounding concerned, I shook her hand off and continued to walk.
"Well back in Forks I wasn't fighting for my life" I said, sounding a little too acidic.
I pulled the writhing broken body a few metres away from the window and lit one of the matches; I smiled smugly and dropped it. Her screams were horrendous; I'd never heard anything like it before.
I turned around and saw Alice and Emmett struggling against the other two vampires, suddenly I saw the vampire that was fighting Emmett pull something out from under his dark cloak. I analyzed it as good as my senses would allow and saw that it was some sort of knife; Emmett must not have seen it because he went charging.
"Emmett no!" I screamed but it was too late, he was stumbling to the floor and I ran over to him. I turned to Alice and stared with tears falling down my face; she snapped the vampire's neck and ran over to where I was kneeling down. Mum came running out and fought with the vampire that had stabbed Emmett, I was now squeezing Alice's hand as tightly as I could.
"Oh no . . . this is bad" Alice said staring at the knife sticking out of Emmett's chest.
Emmett coughed and smiled his usual smug smile, "It's only a scratch, don't worry about it. Since when did knives permanently scar vampires" he said laughing through his violent coughs.
"Ness, help me lift him into the house" Alice said.
As we reached the living room we laid Emmett down on the sofa and she pulled me and mum by our arms into the kitchen.
"I'm afraid me and Emmett know what's going to happen next" she said sadly.
"I don't understand" mum said.
"Emmett is dying, that knife wound must be immensely painful for him but he's just putting on a brave face"
"If he dies won't he just go back together, I thought vampires did that" I said to her sounding hopeful.
She shook her head slowly, "That knife is made out of vampire teeth, that's the only thing deadly enough to kill us with a sure way of knowing we won't regenerate. It's sort of like humans and DNA, each vampire has a special gene in their venom. Edward, Carlisle, Rosalie, Emmett, Esme and you Bella have different . . . versions if you will of the same gene, Carlisle's. It was passed from his venom into all of you and you Renesmee have the human gene in your venom which you inherited from Bella, that's what causes the blood in your body but me and Jasper have different gene's too all of you. This is where the teeth come into it, if you were to put an excessive amount of vampire venom into another vampire that had a different gene in their venom too your own, they would no doubt die within the next hour. Somehow the Volturi have made a knife out of teeth which holds the venom, the venom as we speak is passing through Emmett, destroying all of the vampiric parts of his body, the new gene acts as a sort of bacteria, killing off the vampire part of the body until you . . . die" she said.
I couldn't believe what I was hearing, I didn't even realise I was crying. Losing Emmett would be too painful, I couldn't let it happen.
"There's got to be something we can do, we can't lose Emmett, not now . . . what will Rose do, he practically keeps her sane, she hates being a vampire!" I shouted.
"We know Ness, we don't like it anymore than you do. This'll destroy us all" mum said sounding sad.
The tears kept coming and I clenched my fist, I walked out of the kitchen and knelt down beside Emmett. I pulled out the silver phone and placed it in his hand, "You need to say goodbye" I said through the sobs.
He nodded and dialled a number amazingly fast, "Hey babe . . . bit of bad news I'm afraid" he said.
As he explained what had happened I heard a muffle shout from upstairs, it was Charlie shouting a string of profanities. Mum ran up the stairs in a heartbeat and I followed her, she grabbed Charlie's hand and shook her head slowly.
"Mum, what are we going to do" I said quietly.
"This is it, were not doing this anymore. After Charlie's changed completely I'm going to ring Edward and were finishing this. If we die then we die but I'm not spending the rest of forever running like this, being away from Edward is killing me" she said and placed her head on the bed next to Charlie.
I nodded and begun to walk back down the stairs, my eyes widened and I slowly sat down on the step. I begun to cry again and I pulled my legs up and folded my arms over them. Emmett was lying completely still and Alice was kneeling next to him sobbing tearlessly, I couldn't believe it . . . despite everything I never would have thought any of us would die, sort of like in the movies. The good guys were always supposed to win . . . weren't they?