Chapter Eighty Five
Bella
It was obvious to me that the Volturi were our main problem but I wondered if we could use the wolves imminent arrival to our advantage. The vampires were the enemy of the wolves and they were there purely as guardians of the humans from the vampires so if we could offer them a way of killing some real threats to the humans might that outweigh the price they thought we should be paying for Charlie's death. After all, we hadn't actually been responsible for that, or his conversion. It wasn't until Peter pointed something out to me that I realized it was more complicated than I had first thought,
"Hey Bells as far as the fur faces are concerned we're guilty of breaking the treaty, quite aside from the Charlie incident."
"I'm not sure I follow Peter"
"Go look in the mirror girl. Someone is responsible for what you see there."
"Oh God! But it's what I wanted. It was my decision, I wasn't attacked or bitten without my consent"
"I think the difference in semantics might slip past the wolves Bella"
I turned to Jasper who had just spoken
"What about if I spoke to them first on my own"
He shook his head,
"That wouldn't be safe but I'm willing to go with you and try to explain. We don't need to fight a war on two fronts at the same time, someone is going to get hurt if we do"
"Yeah Us" interjected Peter.
Jasper
We decided to wait out in the open for the wolves to arrive, we expected them soon, hopefully before the Volturi arrived because on our own we had very little chance of beating the Guard. In the event we were out of luck as we became aware that we were surrounded by black cloaked figures. Three floated forward to face us and threw back their hoods to reveal Jane and Alec with Felix hovering closely behind them.
"Well it seems we were expected. Major I see you have your wife with you. That's good because Aro wants to speak to her too."
"We haven't done anything so why has Aro sent the Guard for us?"
Jane smiled maliciously,
"Oh I think you've done quite enough. Aro will want answers, he's very upset with you both and its never a good idea to upset the Volturi."
"And if we don't go with you?"
"Oh there's no need, Aro is on his way. We just came on ahead to ensure you would be here to welcome him"
This wasn't good, the Volturi brothers hardly ever left their city.
She turned her gaze on Peter and Charlotte,
"You can leave, you are of no consequence to the Volturi"
Peter was ready to answer her but I shook my head and he stopped himself. Charlotte pulled on his arm and he turned slowly reluctant to go but knowing there was nothing he could do that wouldn't make the situation worse.
Charlotte
Once we got far enough away that we wouldn't be overheard by the freak and her friends I pulled Peter up,
"What? Now you want to stop?"
"Use you brain Peter. We have to keep the wolves away from the Volturi or there will be all out war and we'll all end up dead."
It registered the truth of that in his brain and cursed,
"So I'm going to stop the fucking furry faces from getting their collective ass whipped?"
"Yes. Unless you want the Major and Bella dead"
"Darlin' they're already dead men walking"
I hit him hard
"Don't you dare say that Peter. Don't you dare."
He put his arms around me
"I'm sorry Char. I didn't mean to upset you but in all honesty do you think they can talk their way out of this?"
"I don't know but I'm not writing them off if we can stop the wolves."
Peter
Well this was a pretty fucking mess! As she said that we heard movement in the trees and a huge black wolf came out into the open, crouched ready to pounce. I stood very still and put my hands up,
"We need to talk. There's trouble up ahead, the Volturi are here and they've got Jasper and Bella."
I watched as the wolf backed up into the trees and a few seconds later a tall dark-skinned guy walked back out wearing only a tatty pair of shorts.
"Trouble?"
I nodded,
"The Volturi are here, they blame Jasper and Bella for Edward and Alice's deaths. I want to ask you to stay away until they get those sorted, if the Volturi see you there's going to be a war."
"What about Charlie? His death has to be avenged."
"Well you can try if the Volturi leave anything. It might be difficult since it was Bella who killed her father."
"Bella did it?"
"Yes she did and the one who changed him was Alice Cullen who Jasper and I killed, so what exactly do you plan on doing? Starting a full scale war? Killing Bella? How would you explain that to the Quileute elders?"
Sam
This was getting really complicated now. I'd spoken against coming here to avenge Charlie and if Billy, Harry and the others had known it was Bella they wouldn't have insisted. Now we were about to run into the might of the Volturi with a handful of wolves and no chance of success. It didn't feel right though leaving Bella to stand alone.
"Why aren't you there with them?"
"Majors orders. He's hoping to settle things without losing his life or Bella's and if anyone can do it he can, but I don't fancy his chances. You going on or waiting with us?"
"I need to talk to the others."
I didn't trust these two so I backed into the trees and phased back to speak to the others.
Peter
Well it could go one of two ways, either the wolves would attack us and then head on to meet the Volturi but I guessed they were too smart to start a fight they couldn't win, even if Bella was involved, after all she was a vampire now. I put my arm around Charlotte,
"Nerve racking around the fur faces. I hate fucking dogs at the best of times."
"Peter please don't start. Things are bad enough as it is."
I mimed zipping my mouth and we stood looking at the trees waiting for the big guy to reappear.
When he did, he wasn't alone, there were four of them, all huge, and all looking angry.
"We wait but if they aren't back in a couple of hours we'll assume you lied and you go first."
Great! If the other two didn't survive we became dog chow.