In the year 2020, Vampires took control of society and ordered all humans placed in vampire custody. The people who were not captured formed a Resistance movement, headed by the Human Council, who began to plan the Insurgence.
I am, of course, indebted to Stephenie Meyer for this world we all play in, and these characters we all adore. Additionally, I am indebted to hitntr01, who has graciously allowed me to use certain concepts from her wonderful story "In Need of Rescue", which constitute much of the background of my own story. These include: the language Vampiri, the Rules, the machines used to draw blood from humans, Manners Training, and the plot theme of Edward working as a guard at a facility holding humans. Thank you, hitntr01
Author's note – I have posted an outtake of the incidents that will be contained in this chapter as a separate story, called "The Insurgency Outtake, Alice and Her Blood Slaves". If you are an Alice fan, this is not the story for you. It shows some of the events from the next few chapters from Alice's POV. If there is any interest in this separate posting (as in reviews), I will update it to include the actions covered in the future chapters. I may not leave it up for long, since, as a long time Alice fan, it makes me a little nervous. It shows a shallow, very self-absorbed Alice, but I believe the characterization is consistent and complete. I wrote it in response to a comment left by one of the reviewers. I originally wrote the chapter as an experiment, creating a monologue for an Alice that is quite different than the character I usually imagine.
Chapter 36 – The Ardella problem (continued)
(Jasper's POV)
FROM CHAPTER 35 She's got secrets, that's for sure. Carlisle has said little about how he found her, except that she knew how to defend herself. She told us that she was in the Human Resistance movement, but she is only 13 or 14 years old. I've asked around, but no one knows much about the human resistance. There are a few colonies, as there always have been, but all human colonies have to be registered with Caius. Each colony is overseen by a vampire tracker, and these colonies only exist as sources of vampire entertainment. The humans didn't set them up this way, and certainaly never intended this when they formed the colonies hoping to escape enslavement, but this was the reality. All forms of human existence were to be overseen by vampires in our world. No independent human existence was permitted under our laws.
Caius gave a few petitions to some vampire trackers to allow free-range humans on their properties. That is, as long as certain requirements are met. The humans are not allowed to use permanent structures: in other words, they cannot move into abandoned houses. They can live in tents or caves, if they want. But if they want the comforts of home, they will have to be blood slaves.
The colony humans are not allowed to grow crops, as this could lead to true independence. Any crops found should be burned. The vampires with the permits for colonies on their land can give food to their human herds during the winter, but the humans should be forced to "forage like animals" if they want to "live free", as Caius put it. The vampires can offset the cost of supplying food and blankets by granting hunting licenses, allowing other vampires to hunt their herd.
And there were plenty of takers for those licenses. The giddy freedom of July 2020, when all humans were targets and could be taken at will, had not been forgotten. It had ended all too soon, so that by the end of 2021, there were very few humans left in freedom. There were a few groups of humans hiding in the mountains or woods, protected by gifted warriors, and Caius had decided to let those remain for the time being. He planned to personally exterminate those in the future, but was still caught up in Volterra with the day-to-day running of this new empire. He looked forward to the future challenge and occasionally contacted me because one of these groups, the Quileute Indian tribe, lived outside of Forks. He had a map of the world in his personal quarters, where all identified colonies were coded with blue pins, and identified resistance groups remaining from 2020 were marked with red pins. He was lining up a few trips so he would be able to hunt for the first time in centuries. First he planned to eliminate the groups protected by gifted warriors, and then maybe relax by hunting a few colonists for food and sport.
Aro had always left the security side of the empire with Caius. Aro ran the more mundane administrative items, like ensuring that the bottled blood supply being produced by the human containment facilities was reliable, secure, and reasonably priced. Not everyone could afford to keep a human. I knew from personal experience that maintaining one was expensive. Not only did you have to feed and clothe them, but you had to keep the house warm in the winter and cool in the summer. And if you had a human in your house, you were subjected to continuous police scrutiny, making sure you were following the Rules.
The Rules were simple to follow. Just don't talk to the humans, keep them off the furniture, make them wear their collars and leashes, and don't let them read. If you kept a stern hand from the get-go, it was pretty simple. The main rule, which was never put in writing, though, was don't get emotionally attached. This wasn't hard for me. Humans had never really interested me except as a food source.
All of that flew out the window when Carlisle arrived with the girl. His house was far enough out of town that we didn't have to worry about the cops. He had gotten an emergency court order for keeping her while he was in Chicago, which meant the Forks cops wouldn't find out about her for a while. He got the food for her from Miniver's grocery store. He always paid a few hundred dollars extra on each delivery, to ensure Gwen Miniver didn't report the food to the cops. She always groaned and said she might get in trouble with the local cops when the girl's existence became known, but money made that groan go away.
I wanted to change the girl as soon as possible, but Carlisle pointed out that she wasn't even sexually mature yet. She needed time to grow up a little bit more. If things got too bad, we could always move her to another property. Carlisle had properties everywhere from back in the pre-Event days, and we had started having the utilities checked and tested at a few of the houses that were close by. These included a nice, remote property in Colorado, in case we needed to move with her suddenly. I thought that when we finally did mate and change her, we would take her there. We wouldn't have neighbors, and there was a small airstrip nearby, so we could catch a flight to South America easily if we needed to. Most vampires who illegally changed a human either did so in South America, or moved to South America during the vampire's newborn phase. Life was easier going there, and cops were used to making a good living off of bribes. Money talked, and Carlisle had managed to keep most of his.
The girl's recent escapades, including running off to Seattle with Crazy, were annoying. We might have to deal with Miss Crazy in the future. It is true that Crazy rescued her from the guard who planned to sell her to a brothel, but now that little 99 has found her mates, it is time for Crazy to take a few steps back. Crazy needs to understand that we will be taking care of her from now on. Carlisle has refused to discipline our little mate in any traditional fashion. He just holds her close to him, and she responds well to that. She seemed to respond to either of our scents, which would bode well for the time when she became our mate.
But right now, I suddenly had a more pressing matter.
The first human that Alice had bought had been killed by the cops. Alice had always been able to get what she wanted and get away with what she wanted. She learned a hard lesson with her first human. I tried to warn her, but of course she didn't listen. The chicken-ass cops had waited until I was out of town to pay their visit. Alice had started to treat the human almost like an equal, like a friend. This was exactly what the cops were out to eradicate with the Rules. The girl had been calling Alice by name, sitting on the furniture, and going outside in the back yard before we had put up a fence.
When the cops came to the house, the girl had answered the door. Before answering it, she had called out to Alice by name, asking her if she was expecting visitors. So Alice's girl had two violations of the five Rules violations that were necessary for the cops to legally kill her before the cops even got in the house. The cops found their five violations quickly, since she sank onto the sofa while they talked to Alice, and she hadn't been wearing her collar. They asked Alice about the lack of a fence, and Alice tried to tell them that yes, she had let the girl outside without a fence, but she knew the property boundaries.
That was all the cops needed. They pulled the girl on the floor and drained then dismembered her in front of Alice. It took us months to get the smell of the blood out of the house. Then the cops moved on Alice. They told her that had the right to kill her on the spot, but they weren't going to actually kill her. I was on the phone when they told her that and was still listening helplessly while they carried out their action. They dismembered Alice and threw her body on the front lawn for the entire city to see.
Emmett and Esme got to the house before I could get home. They helped reassemble Alice, as they cops had left her limbs strewn across the lawn to set an example. When Emmett arrived, Alice's hands had crawled back to the house, and one was scrabbling at the front door.
I was enraged. She wasn't my true mate, but the insult was meant for me as well.
Alice had decided to get a new human a few years later. We followed the Rules carefully with this new girl, Ardella. I told Alice if she wanted a human so bad, then she needed to assume all responsibility for her care. Alice fed the girl exactly what the purchased bags of food suggested. I felt the girl's hunger, but I left everything up to Alice. She wanted the girl, so she would be Alice's responsibility.
We even bred Ardella according to the Rules. Emmett brought over his male pet when she turned 16. I gave the couple a healthy dose of lust and the privacy of a bedroom. It didn't take long before she was pregnant. When the baby was born, I took it back to the Seattle human containment facility to be raised since the baby's crying had been bothering Alice. We would get a deal on the blood by giving the facility a girl child. If we wanted to buy her back in the future, we would be given first option and a reduced price.
Three days after we took the baby from Ardella, Ardella stopped coming out of her room. She stopped cleaning the house for Alice and would only come out the room when it was time for her blood to be drawn. Alice was frustrated, as she was used to having the pet do the heavy cleaning chores, but she was incapable of truly enforcing discipline. Alice finally gave up on trying making the girl do the housework.
As an empath, having a human in the house was a draining experience for me. Before the baby, the girl Ardella experienced fear and loneliness. After the baby, the feelings coming from her were overwhelming. In addition to the fear and loneliness, she felt rage and betrayal. I made sure that rage wasn't going to be expressed, using my powers as an empath. And what was this feeling of betrayal? Did she really think she was going to keep this baby? She had actually spoken to Alice after the child's birth, telling her she was naming the baby Amy.
I stopped going to the house, except to change clothes and to sign checks to pay my bills. I had started to keep my accounts separate from Alice. She was living off of an allowance given to her by Carlisle and Esme. I didn't know how much longer Carlisle would put up with Alice's spendthrift ways. Carlisle worked tirelessly; he always had. Esme stayed home, keeping the house. After Alice's pathetic attempts at housekeeping, she should have had more respect for the work that Esme did. One of the reasons Alice gave for getting the second girl was to get help with the housekeeping. I supplemented the stipend I was still receiving from Volterra for my work on the Gathering with freelance work. I spent my free time at the bar Emmett worked at, when he was on duty, or at Edward's.
But a few days ago, Alice called. The human, Ardella, had left her room of her own accord. She had walked downstairs into the kitchen and then looked out the back doors, before going back upstairs. She had started to leave her room a few times a day, though she would not resume the cleaning chores Alice wanted her to perform. When I stopped in to change clothes, I was picking up a variety of emotions from her. She actually looked me in the eye. That had to be stopped. One glare from me, and she dropped her eyes to the appropriate position. I lived in slave-holding Texas when I was human, and while we weren't rich, we had slaves. I knew how to enforce obedience with subordinates. But Ardella's feelings had contained a mix of curiosity and, of all things, pity. I sent her a small dose of fear, and she quickly ran back to her room.
I told Alice that I couldn't always be coming to the house for the girl's exsanguinations. If she wanted the human's blood so bad, she would have to do it herself.
Today Alice called and whispered that the girl had been in the basement. She had found some of the clothes the original human inhabitants of the house had worn. The woman had been Ardella's height, so Ardella had found slacks, shoes, and a top that fit her. Alice had found her wearing these in her room when she went to summon her for the blood drawing.
Ardella had refused the order. She looked Alice in the eye, and said, "Call Jasper." Alice had obviously run out of the room, and was calling me, using a whispered voice.
Now that shit had to stop. She was to wear the clothes we gave her, and she was going to obey orders. As Alice already knew, a human calling a vampire by name was a quick route to death.
I was going home to deal with this situation.
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