Hello everyone!
SO sorry for the month long wait on this one. I know I've been seriously slacking as far as updating quickly, I've been uber busy with school, and I was in this French Competition thing that I had to practice for 3 days out of the week after school, playing piano (and learning a song for the before mentioned competition), practices for sports, and everything else that has kept me busy! It has all been hectic. Luckily, I'm now on Spring Break and will be bringing my laptop with me to California so I can write and update at least once more before the end of this week.
Another very important reason this took a while was because this chapter is a HUGE turning point (and I mean huge!), and i had to get the plot line straightened out with my Co-author before I could even begin to think about beginning to write this. After a lot of emails and conversatoins, it's all straightened out and this story is coming closer and closer and closer to the end. :'( Only a few chapters left (which will probably turn into a lot more than I anticipate. I can never fit everything I want into a single chapter). I will try to update as fast as I possibly can write (and trust me, it kills me to have to wait for a chapter to be edited once I finish it. I want to see what you think the moment I type the last word on that page!)
Hope you enjoy the chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it. (Scratch that. I had writer's block at the beginning and did not enjoy that. So I hope you enjoy it MORE than I enjoyed writing it.)
:)
-TG
P.S. Just a shout out to my friend Akiko, if you're reading this! Hope you enjoy this chapter too, because I know you've been bugging me at school to get it finished! Tell me what you think in an anonymous review (Unless you made a screen name already? I don't know, you never told me if you did.) Just make sure you include your name, so I know it's you. :)
Chapter 17- Reverie
I didn't know what a 'Volturi' was, but I could hear the fear in Jasper's voice as he mentioned it's name. Jasper, my always fearless Superman, was afraid for once. Just that fact alone made me afraid for him. Anything that could scare a vampire had to be absolutely terrifying. Did I really want to know what it was? I did, but I didn't want to ask the question. It didn't seem like I had control over my own body anymore. The question came out despite my hesitation, "Wh-what is the.. volturi?"
Jasper wasn't looking at me. He was looking through me, as if I'd dissolved into the air before his very eyes. Maybe he was preparing himself for when I actually would disappear… into nothing but a pile of ashes. Would I be able to feel myself being burned? My heart wasn't beating, so wasn't I technically dead already? Would I feel every little miniscule piece of my body being charred? I wouldn't be able to hear or see anymore, but would I feel it? All the questions I had rattled in my head like marbles. It felt like I should hear the throbbing of my heart rate beating too fast from the adrenaline, but- of course- my body was dead and silent.
Jasper's silence was deafening. He had to speak sometime. He still wasn't looking at me, and that fact alone made me want to scream in mad frustration. Finally, I couldn't take the silence anymore. "Jasper! The volturi- what is it?!" He seemed to snap back into reality, but his eyes still looked glassy, as if they were seeing something that wasn't actually there. Some part of my mind briefly wondered if that's what I look like when I have visions, but that part wasn't dominant enough to shine any light on that shadow of grief that had begun to take over my mind.
"The Volturi are a very old, very powerful family of vampires. They reside in Volterra, Italy, but when there's ever any… trouble in the world of vampires, then they send their guard to 'fix' the problem. If a vampire is very gifted, they will often ask them to join their guard. They create and enforce the rules we must follow to exist successfully in the real world."
"What rules?" I asked. I couldn't help but feel reassured at the thought of these Volturi people, like they were coming to protect me, not kill me. Maybe they would stop and listen; maybe they would realize that Jasper and I have done nothing wrong… but I knew that that would never happen. In their eyes, we were probably just the problem.
"The rules are pretty simple: Don't reveal our kind to a human unless we plan on finishing them, and don't cause any disturbances." His mouth pressed into a hard line on the last word, and he looked down to the ground.
Hesitantly I continued, "And by 'disturbances' you mean-"
He nodded his head and cut me off, "A battle between 40 vampires, mostly being out-of-control newborns, at dawn, only miles away from the fourth largest city in the United States of America? Yeah, that would be considered a disturbance. I believe they've been on to our trail for years, but they've been waiting for us to do something truly disruptive to get off their thrones and start doing their job. Plus, you can bet that they may be after special powers."
"Powers?" I asked.
"Yes, like yours and mine. I don't know what you saw, but if they realize what your power is and maybe even what mine is, they may ask us to join them. Like I said, the Volturi only takes very gifted vampires." As he finished speaking, he looked down in thought. I was thinking as well; About everything we weren't going to do, everything we wouldn't be able to see, and what would be waiting for us on the other side. What happens to you if you die when you're already dead? It was extremely hard to label myself or Jasper as dead when I knew that we could feel and breathe. Our hearts may not beat, yet I still love him and he loves me all the same. Does that make us alive enough to have an after life waiting for us? Even if Hell was in store for us, it would be okay as long as Jasper were with me. Anywhere was Hell if Jasper wasn't with me.
Finally, I spoke in frantic hushed tones, "So, what are we going to do? We have to run, right? I mean- if we stay here you'll fight. If you fight, you'll die-" My frantic words came to a close as I let those words sink in.. I couldn't wrap my thoughts around the possibility of a world where Jasper didn't exist in my life. I voiced my thoughts unintentionally, as if I didn't have control over what I said. "And if you die... I will- I just- I- can't live without you." I looked up to meet Jasper's grim expression with my own. He didn't rebuke my words, because he felt the same way. I couldn't live without him, and he couldn't live without me.
That's how it was as a vampire. When you live forever, you have to have something to live for. Before now, Jasper's meaning for life was war, violence, and hatred. He was constantly surrounded by these vicious battles and training, but then we found each other, and everything changed. I don't think Jasper could honestly go back to that life after seeing how much I could love him. At least, that's what I hoped. I would never want anything to happen to Jasper, even if I was gone but... would I honestly want him to live that way again as an outlet? I prayed that I wouldn't have to find out.
I spoke to Jasper with the last bit of hope I had left in me, "So we can't stay here, right?" The silence hung between us as if it was suspended by our gaze. Jasper didn't respond, instead he just looked me in the eyes as if it were the last time. It made me nervous to see that he didn't agree with the idea of running or disagree with the fact that we may die. With a grim aura, I realized he wasn't going to console my dreadful thoughts, when what I thought was probably true.
"I sincerely wish we could leave..." Jasper trailed off, breaking the silence and our gaze as he averted eye contact. "But we'd only be killing ourselves and saving the others by doing so." I didn't expect that. I looked up at him curiously, waiting for my unspoken question to be answered. He must have felt my confusion because he didn't hesitate or wait for me to speak before he spoke again, "If we run, Maria will find us. If Maria can't find us at first, then she'll send other people to find us. As I've said before, we will never stop running- at least, not until they find us and kill us. The people who stayed at camp would get killed by the Volturi, and the others who would follow us, which would probably include Maria, would be saved from the Volturi by our escape attempt. If we stay here, we die, but at least we bring them down with us." There was some sense to that statement, but I couldn't comprehend it. Would I rather die to keep the army from living, or postpone death to leave them to live and hurt people another day?
"Maybe she won't search for us- and by us, I mean you, considering she doesn't know I'm alive yet." I said. I added the "yet" on. Maria would- no doubt- discover my presence as soon as she started following Jasper. "Maybe she'll be distracted with the Volturi too much to care about us." Wishful thinking, part of me thought. It almost seemed like I hadn't thought it, but it really had been true. I was wishing, hoping, praying for a miracle.
Jasper shook his head, with a look that confirmed my thoughts. "We may know about the Volturi coming, but Maria doesn't. She won't be concerned with fleeing from the Volturi, and we sure can't tell her about your vision without revealing your existence and putting your life in danger." Despite the situation, I snickered.
"I can take her." I said with crossed arms, like a defiant toddler. Jasper wasn't amused. His mouth set into a hard line, like it did every time my possible death was mentioned. As I thought of that, it surprised me how many times my possible death had been mentioned in the past month. You would think that seeing the future would help prevent that. On the contrary- here I was: Closer to imminent death that I'd ever been before, and the only perk from my visions was that I knew my death was coming. I may not like surprises, but I was thinking that maybe ignorance is bliss.
"Let's not take the chance." He said seriously. I frowned, waiting for him to say something that could make the feeling of dread ebb from the atmosphere. He didn't say anything. Obviously feeling my disappointment, Jasper wrapped his arms around me. His eyes were closed, and I could feel the anguish he was feeling as he spoke, "I"m so sorry... this is all my fault." It pained me to hear him so lifeless. Listening to him was like a preview of what death would be like.
"This isn't your fault." I mumbled into his chest. He laughed a hollow, dark laugh.
"Oh, but it is. I shouldn't be alive. Our kind aren't supposed to exist, remember? If I was never created- if I had just died like a normal human- I would never have been put in Maria's coven. We would never have gone hunting that day. We would never have discovered you. And, even if you had still found the other vampires, I would never have- and I use this term loosely- saved you from those men or from Nettie. You would have... died, it's true, but at least you would have gone back to Heaven, where you belong, where you could be happy. Where any Angel belongs..." My body shook with invisible tears. Jasper lifted my chin up so he could see me. He analyzed my anguished face and frowned. "I'm so sorry, my Alice."
I shook my head, denying his apology. "No. Where you are is where I am happy." I wrapped my tiny arms as far around his waste as possible. "In your arms, is where I belong." I rested my head against his chest, closing my eyes. "Heaven has no appeal to me if you're not there with me. You are the missing part of me, Jasper. And- until I met you-I had barely known I was missing something. I thought it was natural to feel empty, when I had never felt whole. But now that I do feel whole for the first time? I'd rather die here with you a million times over than to feel empty again." Jasper didn't speak. He held me there against himself silently, probably thinking; about what, I didn't know. I spoke again, "Wherever you end up, I'm coming with you."
Jasper nodded silently, not protesting anymore. Whatever he did put our lives in danger, he just had to decide which evil he would choose. Finally, he answered my question. "We're not going to be going anywhere, love. We're staying here... till the very end. I nodded into his chest. Jasper laced his fingers with mine, and I held up our intertwined hands to my face to look at them. I looked at his pale hand and dismally imagined what it would feel like, dying. I turned his hand around in mine, and dreamily imagined the flames around us like distant memories of the future.
I closed my eyes, and- when I opened them- I was in a vision. It was the same vision as before, except this time I was aware that it was the future and not the present. But- at the moment- I couldn't really distinguish between the two.
It was the same scene;
There were plumes of putrid, purple flames and the streaks of gray and black swooping around the field in and organized formation. I sincerely wished that I wouldn't have to see our demise again. It was like my power had turned against me- taunting me with my abysmal future. I still hadn't seen myself being burned again, but I knew somewhere in this vision I would make an appearance, but by then I probably wouldn't be recognizable by human or vampire except for the last trace of my scent in my ashes. I'd never had the exact vision twice unintentionally. In my new existence, I found that it was now easier to access that part of my conscious brain and replay visions at my own will, but I hadn't willed this vision to return. I didn't want this vision to return, because it wasn't worth seeing again.
The vision focused in on the bodies hidden beneath the last embers, and I sincerely wished I could close my eyes in a vision, but I was forced to watch. Again, it seemed like my power was taunting me with my own death, saying, "You're going to die. So what are you going to do about it?" I could practically hear an omniscient voice saying those words in my head, "What are you going to do about it?" Nothing. There is nothing I can do about it. I thought to the vision.
The vision shook as if it was frustrated and zoomed in across the field, through pillars of smoke and ash and the last remaining fighting bodies. Finally, the vision zoomed in and focused on an almost unnoticeable pair of eyes. One pair of eyes was red, and the other was a brighter amber-red mix. They were focused on the scene before them. I could see faintly through the leaves of a lower bush that the two figures each had one of their hands loosely intertwined. I already knew who they had been simply by the eyes, but something about Jasper's and my hands so calmly held together gave me hope. We were together and safe in this vision. This vision was like everything I couldn't have and wanted. I realized suddenly that this vision wasn't a duplicate of the other vision... it was a revelation.
I snapped out of my vision, but Jasper hadn't moved since I'd blanked. He must not have realized I had had a vision, because he still had his face buried in my hair like before. I lightly pushed away from his arms until I held his forearms in my hands at arms length. He looked confused and depressed.. I smiled, which only bewildered him more.
"Jasper, you said we had to stay here right?" I asked, knowing well that he had said so. I didn't just forget what he had said mere minutes ago. He nodded in response, and didn't look at me in the face. I pulled his face toward me gently, wanting his attention for a moment. "Why do we have to fight? What if we stay here and not fight?" I smiled.
He looked at me like I was missing something very obvious, which was exactly what I wanted him to think. In fact, I knew very well what I was doing.
"I've told you... It's not that simple. We have two options: I can stay and fight, or I can run away." He seemed a bit frustrated with me. I would be too if I was talking to a person who is supposed to have photographic memory that kept forgetting things.
"Ok. So what if we run away?" I continued, urging him to say it.
"That's not really an option... If we were to run away, we would eventually get chased until we were killed. Maria would come after us." He seemed to get more frustrated with the situation as he repeated himself, realizing once again the predicament we were in.
But he had said what I needed. And Jasper had forgotten one thing: The third option.
"What if Maria wasn't around to follow us?" I asked, feigning ignorance.. But I wasn't ignorant- I knew this plan would work. At least- it had to work. Jasper's life and- in turn- my life depended on this plan working. I grinned almost evilly as I saw the puzzled look Jasper gave me as though he could see the gears turning in my head, stretching back into motion as my plan formulated in my mind
Just to let you know, I got SO emotional when writing Jasper's apology. It was sad for me to write about all that pain there. I hope this came out the way it was supposed to and I hope Jasper's not sounding too edward-ish in a masochistic kind of way. Even so, that may be because in this Alternate Universe, Jasper met Alice as a human, so there's going to be a lot of remorse that the woman he loves can't live a normal life anymore. That may be why he seems more like Edward.
Tell me what you thought of the chapter! Hope you liked it enough to review with your thoughts. I can't wait to hear what you have got to say about my writing.
Love you guys! Keep reading and (if you like to write) keep writing too! If there is something particular that you are writing and would like me to read, leave the name of your story in your review and I'll check it out if I can. :) I love reading everyone's different styles of writing.
-TG
