Author's Notes: Here's a nice long chapter! Happy Palm Sunday! And thanks as always to my reviewers: KMT06055, emma, blackcat05, kmddeprez1122, midtwilight, Aiyami Sakura, and Perdita Durango!
In this chapter, Nessie finally realizes the severity of her situation. Oh, she is in trouble now!
Disclaimer: The Twilight saga and all characters therein are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. No profit is being made from this fanfiction and no copyright infringement is intended.
Chapter Thirteen
Inhumanity
Chelsea and Nahuel stared at me, confused, as I stood still, hands clenched at my sides. Jacob! I wanted to run to him, but I held back, wondering what he was doing here amongst the Volturi. This wasn't right.
Then I sniffed the air, and it was not Jacob's delicious masculine scent. The Jacob-figure in the courtyard smelled of vampire… of aniseed and chocolate.
Disappointment and panic crashed through me. If that wasn't Jacob, then who was it? Or had they gotten Jacob, too, done something to him…?
Then, it clicked. I recognized that scent. It had been at Aylen's house. This was not Jacob at all. This was the vampire who'd lured Aylen. One of the Volturi, with a power to appear as someone other than who they were.
That meant that it was the Volturi who had a facility up the river, and of course it had to be the same one I'd seen on the satellite image, taken from Mendel's stolen coordinates.
Govinda Singh, the new head-hunter, was also mentioned in Mendel's code.
Mendel, the Volturi, Aylen's disappearance… it was all the same thing. And here I was, Renesmee Cullen, bane of those Volturi, the cause of their public humiliation sixteen years ago, and I'd walked straight into their arms.
I would not live through this. They were not going to let me go.
As I stared at the figure who was not Jacob, I felt physically ill at the thought of leaving him – the real Jacob, that is. I couldn't believe what I'd done. Talk about an overreaction and now I'd endangered myself. I was the center of Jacob's world, and he of mine. He would be a sun blazing lonely in an empty universe. He would implode. What have I done…
"Who is that?" I asked, my voice taut.
"Heidi?" said Chelsea. She seemed to realize I was seeing someone else. "Heidi!" she said in a different voice. "Stop showing off."
The not-Jacob laughed and when I blinked, it was a stunning female vampire with shining mahogany hair, a radiant smile, and long legs. She wore a short skirt and a tank top. "Who did you see?" she asked me.
I looked down at the ground as if embarrassed.
Chelsea said, "Don't worry. Heidi projects an image of someone you desire. She's wonderful at luring food."
Food…these are not vegetarians, I remembered. Heidi was their huntress.
"You don't have to tell us who you saw," said Chelsea, grinning and looking pointedly at Nahuel… as if she thought I'd been seeing two Nahuels in the courtyard.
"Okay," I said softly.
"Are either of you hungry?" Heidi asked. "I brought dinner."
So that was why I smelled human.
"No," I said.
"I could eat," said Nahuel.
I glanced at him. I'd been so used to our Cullen ways that it took getting used to, remembering that everyone else of my kind drank human blood. I found myself slightly offended, like a vegetarian being forced to eat meat in a foreign country.
"Are you sure, Renesmee?" Chelsea asked.
"I just ate a huge steak, like, yesterday."
"Ah, that's right. You hybrids can survive either way." She shrugged. "All right, then, Nahuel and Heidi, go ahead and eat, and then we'll all go with Demetri."
So we would be guarded on the way. Of course.
Nahuel gave me an almost apologetic look as he disappeared with Heidi.
As I stood with Chelsea in the courtyard, waiting, I smiled at her. There was something about Chelsea I instinctively liked. In fact, she felt like the best friend I'd never had. I couldn't think of a specific reason why, though. I didn't even know her.
Suddenly, it was vitally important that I remember the near-battle with the Volturi when I was a baby. At the time I'd understood the basics – danger, negotiation, the need to show my history to these eerie vampires – but I tried to remember what my parents had said about it all afterward. They didn't relive it much. I think they'd been so stricken with panic and anxiety that it was hard to think of… but think, Ness, think!
Alec I knew all too well. His twin, Jane, was brutal and equally famous. Demetri the tracker, again, all too well. Aro, reading thoughts through touch. What else had the Volturi tried that day?
Muddled by the veil of time and my young age, I heard my father whispering to my mother, "She's trying to break our bonds. It's not working. Are you doing this?"
My mother: "I'm all over this."
Eleazar: "Unit cohesion… Wanting to belong… Recruitment…"
Bonding. Okay.
Slam.
One more connection in my mind. Chelsea was their persuader! Of course. She broke the bonds between covens, so it was easier to destroy them. She strengthened the bonds within the Volturi, making it easier to get along, to fight together. And she was making me feel like I wanted nothing more than to belong to them, and to belong with Nahuel.
Without my mother's shield to protect me, I'd had no idea what it felt like. Of course I fell for it. I still I felt it now: the artificial bonds had not weakened. I just realized what they were.
There was only one thing powerful enough to resist Chelsea's persuasion. The true bonding of mates… or the overwhelming strength of imprinting. When I'd seen Jacob's face in Heidi, it had slapped me awake.
All of this was false.
In that moment, I understood so much. Being away from Jacob made me miss him, body and soul and mind. We were actually perfect for each other, even without imprinting. We had everything in common. Jacob would never eat a human, as I knew Nahuel was doing now. Jacob loved machines and could even put up a fair fight on a video game.
Friendship on fire.
And right now, Jake was my only anchor in reality, my unbreakable tie to what was right. I needed to live for him.
I needed to escape.
"You'll be very interested to meet our project leader," Chelsea was saying. "He's young, only fifteen years old as a vampire, although he was in his forties when he was turned. He's a genius."
"Is that his talent?" I asked.
Chelsea seemed to think about this. "Yes, I suppose it is. He was a genius as a human. Now, he's beyond brilliant. He's offered so many fresh ideas for us."
"In what field?"
"Well, he was a geneti–" she stopped. "Actually, I'll let him tell you all about it." She smiled at me.
Geneticist, I finished for her. Mendel. "Can't wait to meet him."
I was way out of my league here – after all, even Alice and Edward had known better than to try to escape physically from the Volturi – but if I knew one thing, it was that I had to play along. It wasn't hard, since my false feelings yearned to go with Chelsea, be with Nahuel, and join the Volturi.
Jacob, Jacob. His face was the only thing that I knew for certain. That bond couldn't be shifted, weakened, altered, not even across the vastness of distance and time and hurt.
Nahuel and Heidi were back. Heidi's eyes were now a cheery bright red. "Ready!" she said.
I held Nahuel's hand and pressed my arm up against him. This satisfied Chelsea. I was certain she believed my thoughts, passed to him, were reinforcing the desire to join the Volturi.
Instead I thought, Don't react, whatever you do, and then blasted him with the conclusions I'd just reached, Chelsea, manipulation, the utter wrongness of all this. And I was still convinced that Aylen was in danger.
Nahuel stiffened but kept his face calm. He nodded once, so fast I almost missed it.
I prayed that I could trust him. Then I thought, When it comes time for me to escape, let me go. Act as though you're with them. It's the only thing that'll keep you alive to help Aylen. I knew he would not escape with me… he would want to find his sister.
He nodded once more and squeezed my hand.
Outside a pair of rusty gates, there was a long road heading toward the horizon; otherwise, the mission was deserted. Middle of nowhere. We passed two Volturi guards; they wore the palest grey cloaks. Demetri waited beyond them.
"Ready?" Heidi said.
Nahuel and I nodded. I made sure to seem eager.
Then we were running, all five of us: Chelsea, Heidi, Demetri, Nahuel, and me. The sun had just set, leaving streaks of rusted orange across the darkening sky.
I'd decided to wait until we were on the river. It would be much more difficult for them to track me if I were in the water… except Demetri. If only Mom was here. I wasn't sure yet what to do about the star tracker.
We ran all night. The stars were clustered thick overhead. Jacob might be looking at those stars right now, I thought, and an unexpected tear sprang to my eye. It was swept away by the force of the wind as I ran. My sandals did not hold up well against the untamed landscape of loose rock and scrub brush; they fell off around midnight.
By sunrise, my jeans had holes ripped in them, and my silk camisole top was snagged. One of the straps had come loose and I'd needed to tie it en route. The hairstyle given to me at the hotel was long gone; this tropical air turned my hair into a wild mass of curls.
"Hurry," said Heidi. "We need to be on the boat by the time the sun comes up."
I was exhausted. My feet pounded along the ground, a beat to match my heart, taking me closer and closer to the "facility", where I knew something awful awaited me. Their vampire genius, their scientist… I didn't trust it one bit. The land was flat and overgrown with lush plants. We were close to the mouth of the Amazon now; I could smell the shift in the sea to our right. It was less briny, as though a huge amount of fresh water was pouring in from somewhere.
Just before the sun peeked up over the edge of the horizon, we arrived at a small, rotten dock. It appeared abandoned but for the sparkling new hovercraft moored at the end. The craft was hunched over, aerodynamic, and painted black and silver. The back was flat, with a deck, and the cabin at the front was enclosed in shaded glass.
Heidi swung the rope off its post and we all jumped onto the boat. Chelsea was at the controls, and the hovercraft's near-silent drive hummed into life.
"In the cabin until we're past the populated areas," said Demetri, pointing at the front.
Nahuel and I climbed in and sat down on a soft leather bench. My eyes drooped. It was clever of them to run us this way; being only half-vampire, we would have to rest eventually. And the last time I'd slept was in the soft, thousand-count Egyptian cotton sheets at the Copacabana Palace in Rio. Sighing as I thought of it, I let my head fall against Nahuel's shoulder. With utmost casualness, I let my hand drift over to touch his bare arm.
Will you wake me in an hour?
I felt him nod.
I moved my hand away and thought, I hope I can trust this guy.
A few seconds later, I was asleep.
Something was nudging my cheek. My eyes popped open and focused on a pale hand attached to a pale arm, over which a dark gray cloak floated.
Oh, that's right. Volturi. Fantastic.
The gentle hum of the hovercraft's fans lulled me into a stupor; I wanted to sleep some more. I yawned big and touched Nahuel. Thanks.
The turgid brown water of the great Amazon River slapped against the front of the craft. The river was so wide here that it seemed more like a lake. A hot early morning sun blazed into the cabin from a sideways angle. Chelsea was at the controls, Heidi stood behind her, and Demetri was outside the sliding glass door, on the open deck. His cape billowed like a storm cloud behind him.
We were far out of view of humans, so I guessed it was okay to go outside. I stood up, stretched, and said, "I need some air. Is that okay?"
"Sure," said Heidi.
I pulled open the door. The river had a peculiar smell, like the combined force of jungle decay and fish and sediment and the runoff of an entire continent. I stepped up next to Demetri.
"Do you like being one of the Volturi?" I asked. I hoped to distract him with talking. That was the extent of my plan.
"There is no greater service," said Demetri. His eyes remained fixed on the shoreline, miles away. It seemed like he was contemplating something.
"I want to learn what my talent is. Govinda said I didn't know myself."
"Then trust what Govinda says. He is very good at his job. With us, you will receive special treatment for your talent."
"Good." I crossed my arms, at a loss for what to say next. Demetri was like talking to a brick wall.
Tiny splashes knocked up against the hovercraft's edges. Every once in awhile the river would jump and splash up, almost reaching the deck.
The deck had no railing.
My decision was made in a split-second. Once we were in the jungle, I wouldn't have so much water to cover me. They would either turn the hovercraft right around, or they would split their force, probably send Demetri after me…
Without thinking any further, I backed toward the edge, keeping Demetri's back in view, noting that Heidi and Chelsea were looking forward. I balanced on all fours, stretched out my legs behind me, and slipped silently backwards off the pontoon and into the river.
I went under for a good ten seconds, watching through the muddy water as the shadow of the hovercraft moved away. Then I surfaced, and with a quick, deep breath, went under again, putting my hands out in front of me to form a hydrodynamic 'v', kicking my feet and slithering through the water like a fish.
Move, move, move. Faster. I followed the current toward the ocean, feeling the incredible force of the world's mightiest river behind me.
I swam underwater, surfacing only to take quick, intense breaths every ten minutes, knowing that my bright hair color would give me away. I had no idea who or what was following me. I could only imagine, though. I was just that little bit slower than a full vampire. I might have a head start, but they would catch up with me, gaining over time.
After an hour of swimming underwater, I ventured to raise my head and do faster, more efficient breaststrokes. Also, I couldn't see two feet in front of me in this water, and I didn't want to run into an island or something.
When I surfaced, I saw water, water everywhere, and it was only the current that told me which way to the ocean. The huge, open mouth of the Atlantic, all water, all the way to Africa. The vastness of it was mind-boggling.
I dared to glance behind me and swore out loud.
Demetri was in the water about a half-mile behind me. And gaining.
Would he kill me? Would he overpower me and bring me back to the Volturi? I was dead sooner or later. What was I thinking? There was nothing and no one to help me now. Another foolhardy move.
Another hour, and Demetri had halved the distance between us. His black hair was slick; he looked like an otter, diving in and out of the brown water. His pace was measured and relentless. He was wearing me down.
I cut across the current at a diagonal. I needed to get on shore. I prayed there would be no humans around to see Demetri; he would kill them if they witnessed us mid-chase. A flat green island spread across the view to my right. I headed for the white edge of its shore. The water got warmer as it grew shallower.
My feet touched the silted bottom and I pulled myself up, catapulting into the trees, skirting the beach. My soaking wet clothes were a psychological burden but I could hardly pause take them off.
I heard Demetri's footsteps racing behind me. Closer, closer. My own heartbeat sprinted, terrified, anticipating the pain of death. The feeling of my quick blood pulsing out of me, draining into the silt beneath my feet. The agony of my parents… of Jacob… there was nothing to prevent that future. I was finished. Demetri was so close behind me now.
You know what you have to do.
It came out of nowhere, but it was like a deep instinct, an animalistic self that snarled up to take over my actions. I felt like I was hunting.
I had to kill him.
I stopped in my tracks and swung around, breathing hard, feeling his approach. This was a fight for my life. It was a fight for Jacob's life.
The thought of Jacob infused me with strength. I would fight as though he were right behind me. I welcomed it. If I killed Demetri, the Volturi would not be able to track me or any of us. He was a ruthless vampire, and I shouldn't feel guilty about it. His humanity was long gone. He was a soldier, a machine, cold to the core.
My hands curled into claws. I wished that I'd been taught to fight as Demetri undoubtedly had.
He slowed to a walk, almost a stroll down the deserted beach toward me. A midday rainstorm gathered overhead. My heart trilled in my chest, pushing my light, sweet blood through my body, hot with terror.
As I watched Demetri, noted the confidence in his motion, the dead-level gaze, the relaxed hands, I could see that I was outclassed. I was going to lose. And did I have a strategic talent, like reading his mind or seeing the future or shielding him from finding me? No. All I could do was send my pretty little thoughts with a touch.
Or not so pretty thoughts.
What if I could distract him with nonsense? Confuse his mind, muddle his thinking, pester him with thoughts of romantic comedies or lines of computer code or the batting averages of every player in major league baseball? Better yet, distract him with thoughts of human blood, of thirst, the only thing that might take a vampire away from a task at hand?
No. I would have to get close enough to touch him, and by then it would be too late.
I thought about the text message from Alice. My parents, dressed in black, burying whatever was left of me… I choked back a sob. I couldn't do this to them, I had to survive. After all they'd gone through for me… my mother had given up her humanity, I'd broken her spine, for Heaven's sake. This would destroy them both.
I'd been so selfish, running off. So careless, putting myself in danger, trying to solve a mystery that wasn't mine to solve. I'd overreacted. I saw that now that it was too late to change anything.
Demetri was a hundred feet away. A mere step for a vampire.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
Demetri said nothing. I took that as a bad sign. He was going to kill me straight out, then. No convincing me to come back.
I opened my eyes and looked down at my hands. They were shaped like my father's: piano player's hands. Sensitive. Adept. They moved across a different kind of keyboard, making a different kind of music. They could pass a thought directly into the mind of anyone I touched.
As I stared into Demetri's steady burgundy eyes, I thought of Jacob during an emotional transformation. The way he shook as though with uncontainable rage. The way his shape burst out of him, ripping apart clothing and anything else nearby.
My sensitive hands began to shake.
No, I thought to Demetri. No. I won't let you do it. I won't. No, no, NO!
I screamed the last, unsure if it was out loud or in my head.
Demetri jerked as though he'd heard me. I guessed it was out loud.
Govinda, saying, "I see that's all you know." Talent-finder.
Govinda, knowing I could do more.
I raised my hands, palms outward.
The thought gathered in my head like a storm front, gaining in force, crackling with lightning. Oh, I was mad. I was more than mad. I wanted to attack this calm, trained, ruthless vampire. I wanted to shatter his confidence. I wanted to see him burn.
Staring at Demetri, I flung the thought outward from me like a spear. Your arms and legs and hands and feet and head and body, ripped and burning, pain and tearing, purple smoke eating you, flames consuming you, and you can't even scream!
Demetri took a step back, blinking.
Holy jalapeño, it had worked. I grinned.
Saliva filled my mouth as I thought of human blood. The scent, the delicious richness, the warmth down my throat… Demetri's eyes weren't bright, he was thirsty… taking a deep breath, I hurled the image, the taste, the scent out of my memory and into Demetri's mind.
He went stock-still. His eyes darkened and his lips curled back over his teeth. His gaze went out of focus.
I hoped he wasn't hungry for my strange blood.
Then I leaped at him.
It was like attacking a marble sculpture, but my heart was in a race to the finish line and I snarled, I bit, I clawed, I pulled. His hands bruised me, trying to find purchase amidst the distraction of thirst, head moving this way and that, unable to balance against the barrage of images I forced at him through my hands and eyes.
Still, he fought me hard. He grabbed my left arm and twisted it. I heard a sickening pop as my shoulder dislocated, and I hissed with pain. Next was a rib; with a swift blow to my abdomen, the bone snapped and I screamed.
My own scream rang in my ears. It shocked me.
Then, in an instant of pure, glittering clarity, just as I wrapped my hands around Demetri's wrist, hoping to break it off, I remembered something my father had once said about vampire minds. How they were a fine-tuned balance of powerful desires. How it took practice and focus to function.
It would only work once. Demetri was highly trained and focused. I had a mere few seconds to try…
My mind worked even faster than my body as I sent image after image into Demetri's skin. Feeding. Hunting. Human blood. Thirst. Mating. Desire. Pleasure.
He went stiff with stress. His hands, wrapping me in a chokehold, twitched and started, as though with a life of their own.
I slithered out from his grasp and, in the moment when he rolled his eyes to look at me, I lunged for his throat with hands and teeth, sinking my sharp incisors into his metallic skin. My hands yanked on his head, twisting it, and with a grinding crunch and a long swipe of my teeth, the head separated partway from his body. Enthused, I dug in to the rest, twisting and tugging, using my teeth to saw through the rock-hard tissue.
Throughout it all, Demetri didn't make a sound.
His head rolled away in the sand and I set to work on the rest of him. Hands, feet, legs… I recreated the image I'd tormented him with at first. The twitching limbs went into a haphazard pile on the beach.
Just like the bonfires I used to have with Jacob on First Beach. The pale vampire skin was almost the exact shade of the driftwood there.
Now I need a match.
I rummaged through the pockets on each of Demetri's detached, convulsing legs. I pulled out his cell phone. Hmmm. In his other pocket I found what I was looking for: a blue-flame lighter, waterproof. I held the flame next to the polyester of his pants (Volturi in polyester pants? Alice would have been horrified) but the cloth was too wet. I tried his little toe instead; it worked.
I watched as the flames spread and grew in the pile of body parts, belching damp purple smoke that smelled sweet like incense.
I shivered from the chill in my heart. I just killed a man. The most shocking thing was the emptiness I felt. No anger, no guilt, no nothing. This frightened me most. I'd cried when my first computer had broken. I'd despaired when my third computer was infected with a virus and had to be put to sleep. And here I'd just destroyed a sentient being, a body and a mind, a vampire, a man named Demetri, and all I felt was tired.
He wasn't a man. He was just a creature. When he tried to kill me, he gave up his rights to a fair trial.
Using a long tree branch ripped from the forest bordering the beach, I swept Demetri's ashes toward the ocean, mixing them up with the sand. The ashes that reached the ocean floated there with the bits of driftwood and seashell and pebbles.
The first fat drops of the rainstorm hit my face as I turned away and began to run.
