Chapter Twenty Two

Alice

I woke up confused and lost, where was I? Who were these strange people? What had happened to me? I remembered my name, Alice Brandon, I had a sister Amanda, no I'd had a sister called Amanda but she was dead. My parents too, I remembered a fire, a house ablaze, thick smoke and escaping out of a window. Running fast, running for my life, as I heard the bells of a fire engine approaching. Why had I run? Why didn't I stop to help my family escape? My parents and little brother Callum.

Then suddenly I remembered, it was all my fault, I had been the one to lead the killer to our house. My parents were afraid of my strange ability to see the future and forbade me from telling anyone about it but I was young and proud of it. When I met Sefton I lost my heart, he was rich and intelligent, he bought me flowers and books, he took me riding in the park, with his sister as chaperone of course.

When he asked for my hand in marriage, though I was only fourteen, I was thrilled but then I had my first scary vision, of fire, all consuming fire, which terrified me. Sefton saw how upset I was and questioned me and foolishly I told him of my gift, although nor how unpredictable it could be. He sounded interested and amused and called me his little "witch girl". When my father refused him permission to marry me and ordered him to stay away from our house I was crushed. I begged my father to reconsider but he was adamant, he said Sefton was untrustworthy and I was never to mention his name again.

Of course I carried on seeing him in secret, climbing from my bedroom window after my parents had gone to sleep. We talked for hours holding hands and each night he left me with a chaste kiss. He asked me to help him with his father's business, to see certain trends in the stock market, see how his competitors were doing and I was happy to help him for I knew Sefton was saving the money I helped him make for our life together. When my mother found out I was sneaking off to meet him she confronted first me and then Sefton and told him she would tell my father the very next morning. Luckily he was asleep after a long journey on business or she would have told him right away.

I had only been back in my room a few minutes when I heard tapping on my window, it was Sefton and he asked me to run away with him. I wanted to so badly but I couldn't just vanish, leave my family like that. He accused me of loving them more than him and his face wore an expression that frightened me. I promised to think about it and give him my answer the following night, more to get rid of him than anything else, I was so scared. I shut my window and climbed into bed after he went and fell into a fitful sleep when I dreamed of fire again.

The next day I begged my mother not to tell father, that I would never sneak out again and she seemed to believe me, at least she agreed to hold her silence unless it happened again. That night he called for me with his case but I couldn't go, something told me it would be dangerous so with tears in my eyes I explained that I wouldn't be going. He didn't say a word just scowled at me before leaving and I shut my window in relief and went to bed. This time when I dreamed of a fire, the fire was here, at the house. I woke in a fright to find it wasn't a dream after all.

Thick smoke billowed out from under my door making me choke and when I opened it I saw flames licking up the stairs. I ran to wake my parents and Callum but when I opened his door I found him with his throat cut. I screamed and ran to my parents room only to find them both dead too, killed in the same way. In panic I ran back to my own room, I couldn't reach the ground floor, the stairs were well alight so I lowered myself from the bedroom window the way I had done to meet Sefton only to run straight into him a few yards from the blazing house.

I started to stutter an explanation when I saw another vision, Sefton with a bloody knife in his hand standing over my brothers dead body. Then another, my own dead body beaten and stabbed lying in an alley with Sefton standing over it. I tried to scream for help but he caught me up, a hand over my mouth and carried me struggling to his father's car. Once in side he used some strange smelling cloth over my face and I remembered nothing for some time. When I woke I was in a strange room, bare, and cold, with only a blanket to keep me warm and he stood at the door smiling,

"Now Alice, you have no family to concern yourself with, we will be married and you will make me rich with your visions my little witch girl."

"Never."

"If not I will beat you until you agree and if you still refuse I will kill you. Think on that Alice Brandon."

As he finished speaking he lifted the heavy cane he usually carried and brandished it at me as if he would hit me before closing the door and locking it. That was the first time, he came with food and water day after day trying to wear me down but I wasn't going to help him, he was a murderer and it was my family he had killed.

I have no idea how long I was a prisoner or where I was but eventually, the last time I refused him, he snapped and turning his cane so the brass end was pointing at me he brought it down to crack my head. I tried to duck and it hit not only my head but the side of my face too and I felt blood begin to flow down my temple.

He locked me in and left and I collapsed in tears on the cold tiled floor and wept. When I could cry no more I sat wrapped in my blanket shivering and tried to work out what to do. I had seen my fate, the second time I had seen something so dreadful and so vivid.

Why hadn't I seen Sefton killing my parents? My poor little brother? What use was my gift of seeing the future if it couldn't save those I loved? Let him kill me, I had nothing left to live for. I closed my eyes and started to drift when I had the clearest vision ever, an alternate future for me. It was confusing and muddled but it was a future in which I lived and one where I would get revenge for my family. I smiled and promised my family that I wouldn't let Sefton destroy me too, I would destroy him instead. The vision came back over and over and each time it was a little clearer, a little more detailed, until I understood everything. This future frightened me but I had nothing left to lose only my life and to lose it in order to have revenge was better than losing it for nothing so when I heard the footsteps in the corridor outside I knew it was him and I banged as hard as I could to attract the attention of the strange woman I had seen in my visions. She came just as I had foreseen and I watched as she killed him when he raised his cane to defend himself.

It all came flooding back then and I knew my vision had told the truth, I was safe, with the family I had seen, the mind reader had done his job and now I was safe. Esme Cullen smiled down at me a little apprehensively and I got up quickly, gabbling in my attempt to get my message across,

"I won't hurt anyone, I've seen, I'm different from others, I am really, I won't hurt anyone."

She smiled and called the doctor, Carlisle, over and he began explaining what had happened to me but in the end it was I who told him my story and what I'd seen of my immediate future. He looked a little doubtful but allowed me to hunt with himself and his sons Edward and Emmett. I made my first kill as a vampire, an elk, and they were impressed. When I was able to turn away from the scent of a human they were even more convinced I had been right but I knew it would be several weeks or months before they believed I was truly controlled. I had an advantage, I could see if I would get into difficulties with my craving for blood and therefore avoid such circumstances. I would try hard to fit in with the family and later help them if it became necessary, if I could.