Content Warning: "Depictions of torture"
Chapter Twenty-One: Ripple Effects
Cullen Residence - March 18, 2004
Isabella knew the pain was coming to an end, but had forgotten how miserable it was to go through the fires of vampiric transformation. The last time she was buried alive and insane from the pain and grief she had endured, but this time she had Alice at her side. Holding her hand for days as she suffered, never once leaving her side.
Then the fires withdrew and she felt her senses come alive again, but had another moment of revelation as she grasped the difference she had taken for granted for decades. As a traditional vampire, she felt weak and deaf and blind in comparison. Her body felt strange and slow, and for the first time truly understood what she had become when she bit Eliza all those years ago.
She opened her eyes and met Alice's gaze, "How do you feel?" Alice asked with clear concern. She had already readjusted to her old body, but was looking forward to finding Eliza and regaining all the advantages of her new one.
"Like stone, I forgot how much it sucks to be like this." Isabella looked down at her newly vampiric hands with a small frown. "But it will do, first let me try something."
"Alice, can you hear me?" Isabella sent across what should be the link.
"My god, it still works. How is this possible?" Alice stared at her in shock, her mental voice full with pure love and relief.
"Mom?" Eliza's voice called out, faint and barely audible.
"Eliza?" Isabella replied with a touch of relieved desperation.
"Yes, I feel Anna and Michelle too, where am I?" Eliza responded, her mental voice confused and afraid.
"In my head." Angela grumbled. "I'll be there soon, I need you to prepare the Cullens I have worked out how to restore their memories."
"Will do. I can feel your power Angela, somehow you are a part of the link." Isabella sent back, with more than a touch of confusion.
"It probably isn't me, rather the minds of Eliza, Brianna and Michelle." Angela replied with a mental shrug.
"That makes a weird kind of sense. I do wonder if that means you will be a part of the link permanently now. Which would be totally weird." Eliza almost giggled. "Um, where is my body?"
"You haven't been born yet." Isabella said with her usual bluntness.
Eliza sent the equivalent of a manic laugh as she processed the fact she was a disembodied mind inside another mind that was now conscious years before she was even born. "Wow, I got nothin. This is like a bizarro time travel trope with a bunch of bendy rules. Like, how does my mind exist before I'm even alive? Great, I'm gonna be stewing over that one for a while." Eliza's voice was already stronger, her tone was less afraid and more incredulous.
"Anna, can you hear me?" Alice tried, and a very faint presence replied wordlessly in acknowledgement.
"Please stop, the other three are asleep, so please only one at a time. I have compartmentalized them off, so they can converse through the link freely, but it is taxing as they awaken. I can bring Leah into this shortly, she and her pack are coming with me." Angela tried to keep the hostility out of her voice, she was still dealing with newborn thirst but thankfully this new connection to Isabella came with some perks, mainly access to her shield. It made calming her mind easier, and allowed those partitions with the other consciousness to have some individuality.
"Leah, thank god." Eliza said with notable relief in her voice. Isabella sent the feeling of a hug towards her daughter, and then sent a non-verbal signal that she was going to address something to the coven out loud.
"I need to call a family meeting, there are many things to discuss and a friend will be arriving shortly to help." Isabella said with a commanding voice, the same she used when giving directions to the coven. She twitched slightly to remember these people were not her family yet, they were still strangers who were most likely creeped out by everything that has happened already. "Please." She added to appease the awkwardness.
She could hear the family starting to gather down in the lower living room and she took Alice's hand in hers and headed downstairs. The entire Cullen clan was waiting anxiously, although now more irritated than confused by the current situation. Specifically Carlisle who was pacing back and forth, with Esme watching him helplessly.
Then Jasper flashed forward in a quick and brutal move that would have easily decapitated any normal vampire. Isabella smiled viciously and twisted out of the way, taking his arm and twisting it behind him making full use of her newborn strength. Then she leaned in close to his face as he fell to his knees in agony.
"Try that again, and I take the arm. If you fail to learn that lesson I will end you if you try again." Isabella hissed, and before she could let him go she could feel Emmett start to move. In one smooth motion she released Jasper which forced him to the floor, and then turned and vanished into Jasper's shadow, coming up behind Emmett and kicking him in the back. He went flailing into his brother, both tumbling into the wall near the stairwell causing drywall to crumble. They both quickly got to their feet and started to size up Isabella who just gave them an eager grin.
"Enough!" Esme shouted, drawing everyone's attention. "Jasper, how dare you attack her like that. Shouldn't the fact that she just brought you down with no effort prove they are speaking the truth?"
"You're right, how is this possible? You are fighting with master level prowess as a seventeen year old girl with no combat training, and that gift you just used is unlike anything I have ever seen." Jasper agreed with a nod as he started to rub his injured shoulder.
"Almost there." Angela advised.
"The answers you seek are about to arrive." Isabella said formally, tucking her hands behind her back and motioning towards the door. Angela didn't bother to knock, since in many ways the house felt like an extension of her home. Leah was right behind her, along with Jared looking confused and unsure of what he was doing.
"Where is Sam Uley?" Carlisle asked with a welcome smile directed at Jared who shrugged and shook his head.
"I got no idea, she's the boss now." Jared motioned towards Leah who smiled at Carlisle, happy to see him alive again.
"It is good to see you Carlisle." Leah said, and then noticed Isabella. "Oh thank god, mom." Leah rushed towards Isabella who accepted Leah's hug easily. "I'm so happy you're alive. I felt you die."
"I know, I'm sorry. I can't believe I was so careless. It was very unlike me." Isabella managed a joke, and Leah gave her a small smile in return. At least she would have her extended family, but she wasn't looking forward to years without Eliza.
"Mom?" Rosalie started to chuckle. "How is that even logistically possible?"
"Mother-in-law, I'm engaged to her daughter." Leah said off hand, then stared at Rosalie as she realized these were not the people she had grown to care for.
"You're gay?" Jared asked with genuine surprise. "That makes so much sense."
"Shut up Jared." Leah glanced back at him with disappointment and he immediately shut up.
"What's going on here?" Carlisle interrupted angrily, his usually calm demeanor slipping since his son had been run off without discussion or a real explanation.
"Allow me." Angela said as she directed her gift towards the Cullens, sending a copy of the mental impression she got from each of them the last moment she had touched each of their minds. They all stood like statues for several minutes as they processed the memories. It wasn't their consciousness like the minds she carried with her, so the memories were fragmented and incomplete, but it was enough for them to fully understand what was going on.
Esme rushed towards Isabella and hugged her deeply as soon as her eyes opened, then she pulled back and looked towards Carlisle. Carlisle was staring at the family he loved more than anything, realizing that they had turned away from him. Especially Esme, who he couldn't stop glaring at with disappointment and grief. "What happened to me?"
"You went to the Volturi and sacrificed yourself to destroy them." Jasper said somberly, as he walked past Isabella with a quick nod of apology. "I'll go with you father, they don't need me in this timeline."
"Jasper, are you sure?" Esme asked, touching his arm as he walked past her.
"I almost went with him before, now I cannot leave him alone." Jasper explained easily, since he had been struggling with his place in the coven anyway and this would give him the opportunity to help Carlisle heal instead of suffer alone.
"Carlisle, you will always have a place with us, no matter what happened." Isabella said with an open expression.
Carlisle gave her a conflicted look, "I'm not so sure about that. I can feel the anger and grief, but it isn't my anger and grief. I think I need some time to process all of this."
"Of course." Isabella flashed him a quick sympathetic smile, as Jasper and Carlisle quickly left out the back.
"That went better than I expected." Eliza chimed in through the link.
"Is that a car?" Emmett asked as he turned towards the front of the house.
"Good, he's here." Angela said with a heavy sigh of relief.
"What did you do?" Isabella growled towards Angela.
"We're evenly matched now Isabella, and I have no interest in fighting you. He is my father, your father and deserves the choice." Angela explained easily, sending her desperation and need through the link.
"You're right. Fuck!" Isabella stared at her first a moment before nodding, relenting to the fact that she couldn't keep him out of their lives. She cracked her neck and stared towards the front door with nervous anticipation. This wasn't the hundred year old man who hadn't been her father for decades, this was the father she had just moved in with, who must be in a panic after his daughter went missing for three days.
"Everyone, let's adjourn to the study to discuss things while Isabella and Angela figure out what to do with their father." Rosalie strongly suggested, as she reclaimed her position as coven second. Everyone nodded and left the room without another word.
"Angela?" Leah said with a slightly pained tone.
"Right, sorry it slipped my mind." She looked into Leah's mind and searched for the link to Eliza which was cut off by the partition. Once she found it she let the link re-establish, and she could feel the love radiating from both sides of the connection.
"Thank you." Eliza sent her with a sensation of a warm hug. Leah moved up into one of the bedrooms for some privacy, as Jared looked around and eventually followed the rest of the Cullens into the study.
"You're welcome." Angela sent back, as Charlie got out of his cruiser, slamming the door in anger and jogging towards the front door. He pressed the doorbell three times in quick succession, and then started knocking on it like an officer of the law.
Angela looked to Isabella who rolled her eyes and made her way to the front door, opening it and bracing herself for anything. Charlie was in mid-knock and his eyes widened as he met Isabella's bright red irises. "Charlie." She said simply, moving aside to usher him inside. He furrowed his brow but moved through the doorway at her urging, only to stop when he found Angela in the center of the room.
"Okay, what the hell is going on?" Charlie looked back towards Isabella and then at Angela a couple of times before Angela parted her mouth in hesitation.
"Maybe I was wrong." Angela said with a sudden sadness, realizing she was about to upend his life and force him to live through decades of hardship. She shut her eyes trying to force herself to act, as she pushed her power towards him and sent his memories in full to him. For Charlie, she knew his mind far better than the Cullens, and had a true collection of his memories. His face shifted and then twisted as he tried to sift through a hundred years. With his human mind it was far too much to process and he felt his sanity start to crack.
"Something's wrong! Angela, Isabella… help. Help!" He reached up to his head and started to beat against his temple as wave after wave of pain washed over him.
Isabella was staring at her father, at a loss and looked to Angela who was clearly just as confused. "What can we do?"
Angela examined his mind and realized they had to act, but wasn't sure which way to go. "I can attempt to erase the transfer, but he may never regain his sanity because traces will exist no matter how thorough I am. Or we can turn him, and during the transition I can make sure he is able to process the memories."
"Turn me!" Charlie shouted, as he collapsed to the floor. Isabella picked him up and gently laid him on a nearby couch, then leaned forward and bit him in the neck just deep enough to release her venom. Then she stood and looked at Angela.
"What happened?" Isabella asked, managing to push down the fury she was feeling towards her sister.
"It was an overload for the human mind. After Leah accepted the transfer so easily, I thought it would be the same for him." She moved over and brushed his hair back and then chuckled as she realized he still had his mustache. "Zoey would want me to shave that off."
"I'm sorry about Zoey, I can't imagine waiting nearly a hundred years to see my daughter again." Isabella said, and then her eyes widened and then shut in pain. "Or I'll know exactly how you feel. Fuck. At least I can find Brianna early, before that monster hurts her."
"I don't even know if it is the moral choice to claim my daughter in this timeline, when by all rights I should put right what I got wrong the first time around." Angela looked down, feeling a wave of pain at the idea of losing her daughter forever.
"You already know what you'll do, because you love her." Isabella gave her a knowing look, and Angela felt her entire body shake with grief, knowing that the person that meant more to her than anything was gone forever. "I'll make sure she has a good life, that's all I wanted anyway."
"We'll figure it out, together. I guess we'll just have to adapt to this new normal, I have no power to move through time or fuck with fate." She glanced up towards the study and could feel Alice's impatience and worry.
Angela nodded, and managed a small smile knowing she would at least have family. Then she looked down at Charlie, feeling intense guilt over her selfish actions. "I should be able to guide him through the transition now that he is turning, but this just complicates everything."
"None of this is going the way I hoped." Alice spoke up from behind them, as she flashed down the stairs and into Isabella's arms, burying her head in her shoulder. "I'm so sorry about all of this."
"Why are we here?" Emmett said as he entered the room, followed by Rosalie, Jared and Esme.
"I don't entirely know, a second chance maybe?" Alice didn't pull away from Isabella, using her as support. Isabella for her part was trying to stay objective, but things had already started to spiral out of control and she didn't want to blame her lover, but couldn't deny it was all her fault.
"Having a vision is one thing, but this is like a weird temporal thing. Can you time travel? Because it doesn't make sense otherwise." Esme asked, her mind spinning with her past future memories and the choices she made for her family. She knew she would act exactly the same given the options, but it was still strange.
"No, yes, maybe. I don't know! I'm just here, I'm just trying to hold onto our lives. Maybe recreate what we had without all those losses." Alice turned towards the family and felt Isabella pull her back towards her chest, holding her tightly despite her own reservations over Alice's actions.
"You mean kill Victoria and Joham quickly, before they can do any of the damage. That will fundamentally change history, to the point where nothing will be the same. We might as well go back and kill Hitler. You were alive back then, why change our history and not help the world and all those people." Angela let go of some of her anger and immediately felt guilty about blowing up.
"That would… I… I don't have that kind of control over this manifestation of my power. Plus, we're just one family, that would affect the lives of billions." Alice balked at the idea, but there was something to what Angela was saying that made sense. If she had traveled back, couldn't this also be linked to the vision she had before she even met Jasper and the Cullens? She shook her head at the idea, it was ludicrous to even think about going back that far. But even as she pushed the idea aside, she squirreled it away in the back of her mind as an escape if things got too twisted.
Forks - April 9, 2004
"It's time." Alice said with a strangled voice, her enthusiasm for the game was passing at best. Yet she pitched exactly as she had the last time they were all gathered, except there were far more players. Although Carlisle, Edward and Jasper were absent, they were replaced with Angela, Charlie, Leah, Jared, Paul and Rachel. A large force just in case James and Victoria proved to be too elusive.
Yet they played, almost going through the motions of each inning exactly as it happened before. There was no joy or laughter as they passed the time until the real moment of anticipation. When it was less than a minute out Alice signaled everyone to gather, and the game quickly broke apart. The wolves left the field to flank, just before three figures emerged from the tree line right on time and made their way towards the coven with the same arrogant posture and confidence as they had in the original timeline.
Isabella took the lead, meeting them a half dozen paces away, which they perceived as a safe distance. It took every ounce of willpower to keep herself from rushing Victoria, but kept to the plan. They had one good shot at getting this right.
"We thought we heard a game." Laurent said with his usual cautious but pleasant tone of voice. I'm Laurent, these are James and Victoria."
"I'm Isabella, and this is my family. Laurent, you should follow through with your desire to leave. Go north to Denali, there is someone there I think you should meet." Isabella said cryptically, her eyes sweeping across each of their faces again and again as she spoke.
"I don't…" Laurent started but before he could really understand what was happening Isabella burst forward, taking James' head before turning towards Victoria and slamming her into the soft ground. Emmett and Charlie got a hold of Laurent's arms and held him back as the wolves entered the clearing to the south.
"You took everything from me, and I will not suffer you to live in this world for another second you spiteful evil sadistic manipulative thundercunt!" Isabella reached down and ripped Victoria's head from her neck in one powerful motion, letting out a grunt of satisfaction as the sound of ripping rock echoed across the field.
"Wooo Hooo!" Eliza let out through the link. She had tried to hold back her excitement not just in finally getting to Victoria, but the small reference to one of her favorite Ryan Reynolds quotes, meant she couldn't quite stop herself.
"Why?" Laurent looked down at the remains of his coven with confusion, especially when Emmett and Charlie let him go.
"They were evil, you are family." Isabella said as she got up off of Victoria's lifeless chest. "It won't be complete, but we can fill you in on the hows and whys if you like."
"Please, I need an explanation." Laurent's French accent was getting thicker with his confusion and frustration, he was surrounded with no hope of escape if this coven desired him dead. But couldn't fathom why they would let him live. Until he felt pressure on his head, and soon a flood of memories began to circle around his mind. They were very disjointed and incomplete, but he found what he needed. The truth of the depravity and cruelty Victoria was capable of, and the love of Irina, which was something he never knew he desperately needed.
"I'll go with you up to Denali." Rosalie offered, and Emmett nodded along in agreement.
"Angela should go, so that she can help fill in some memories for the Denali." Isabella suggested.
"Garrett, my brother. I don't understand, what are these memories?" Laurent touched his temple, confused and elated. "How can I even approach Irina? The memory of how we met just isn't up here."
"Angela do you have… Angela?" Isabella called out loud while also searching the link for her.
"What's wrong?" Esme asked, placing a hand on Isabella's shoulder.
"She's gone, which doesn't make sense…" Isabella looked to where Victoria had been killed and found her body missing. "Fuck." Isabella swore, "Angela!" She shouted through the link realizing she couldn't even feel Eliza, because Angela's side of the connection was closed off.
Warehouse District, Seattle - April 10, 2004
"Where am I?" Victoria asked as her eyes focused and life returned to her features. "Who was that?" She asked the only other person in the room who she could barely see from her angle laying on an old decrepit mattress.
Angela was leaning against the steel I-beam she had been chained to all those years ago, or was it a year into the future? Thinking about the logic of her situation was starting to twist her mind a little. "We're a little early, you didn't bring me here until next year, but it's abandoned, which is perfect for my needs."
"Where are my arms, where are my legs!?" Victoria shouted as she realized her limbs were missing.
"Angela, please don't do this." Eliza begged, and Angela closed off the wall sealing Eliza away from her conscious mind.
"Safe, for now. I'll explain, but first, I owe you pain!" Angela smiled as she sent the memories of Charlie's capture and emotional torture before he was turned.
"What the fuck was that?" Victoria shook her head, fear and disgust crossing her face.
"That was what you did to my father. You captured him, told him his daughter was dead, and then tried to torture him. But you had already succeeded in breaking him, a little pain didn't matter." Angela was glaring at Victoria, unable to hide her hatred.
"I have never… wait. Did that bitch kill James?!" Victoria screamed at Angela in rage and grief.
"Yes, but she was relatively merciful to him, considering how he hunted her and used her as bait in a game to lure out her mate. When he was killed in that timeline, you vowed revenge. Charlie was second on your list. I think I should show you number three, her name is Lauren, and you drove her mad." Angela sent the memories she had lifted from Lauren, who had to watch her humiliate and murder Mike Newton and Tyler Crowley after forcing them to have sex with one another. Then she dragged her back to her home, tortured and murdered her family, and then she finally turned her after breaking almost every bone in her body.
"I… didn't do that. I would never do that." Victoria stuttered out, her head shaking in disbelief.
Angela climbed onto the bed and straddled her, "oh yes you did, and so much more. I have two more for you. One is harrowing and soul destroying, the other is impossible. I think I'll start with mine, ease you into the big show. Shall we?"
"No, please!" Victoria begged, but Angela just smiled viciously as she forced her own memories of Victoria's malicious and depraved actions into her mind. But this one she was able to couple all of her own desperate emotions at watching Victoria torture, rape and kill Ben and then turn her. Then she kept going as she slaughtered those poor people on the dock and finally what she did to that priest.
Victoria was gasping and begging for her to stop and Angela leaned forward and cupped Victoria's cheek. "I know it hurts, even for a sadist like you, it's different when you can feel the pain. Almost done, and then I'm going to do to you what you did to my sister." Angela pushed off of Victoria and moved to stand at the foot of the bed, reestablishing the link to Isabella so she could pull the memories directly from the source.
"Angela! What are you doing?" Isabella shouted through the link.
"Getting my own revenge. I'm sorry about this, but I have no choice." Angela reached into Isabella's memories and easily found what she was looking for; The memories of Isabella's torture were kept deep in the recesses of Isabella's mind, perfectly preserved and locked away like Pandora's box. She gently opened the box, and funneled the memories into Victoria's mind.
She ordered them perfectly, so that Victoria could feel it in real time. All the pain, all the misery and desperation, all the humiliation, hopelessness and sorrow, all the guilt, and finally all of the insanity of spending a decade in the dark all at once.
Victoria began to convulse, her mind overloaded. Angela picked her up and carried her downstairs, kicking open a sewer lid and starting down a water drainage tunnel to her final destination. It was a perfect twenty-feet deep hole in a small commercial plot of grass. The warehouses on both sides were currently unoccupied, and she knew that they would remain that way for years. She laid Victoria's torso on the ground, and dropped her concrete encased limbs into the hole first, then shoved rebar through her clavicle down through her hips, causing Victoria to scream in pain.
"Goodbye, I hope you enjoy eternity in the dark." Angela whispered in her ear, and then threw her into the hole as well. Then she hand mixed the concrete, and began to fill it inch by inch until there was a foot left from the top, and then topped it with soil so that it would disappear into the otherwise peaceful spot of grass.
"She wasn't Victoria." Isabella said as appeared from a nearby shadow after Angela had placed the dirt over her concrete grave.
"Yes she was, I could feel her cruelty on that field, and the same malice and hatred in her heart. She just hadn't committed the crimes yet. Don't judge me for this, I had to do it." Angela couldn't quite look at her sister, she felt deeply ashamed and broken by what she had done. She had hoped revenge would give her some peace, but all it did was fracture her soul even further.
"I know, I know." Isabella said simply, placing a hand on her shoulder and then pulling Angela into a tight hug.
Author's Notes:
Another chapter, yay! This was going to be a bit longer, but I felt this was a good place to stop because it still early on. The next chapter will start moving through the timeline and each section will be a bit shorter but there are a lot of them. I hope to get it done in a week, but we'll see. I'll post it as soon as it's done.
Next Chapter: A Song of Eternal Shadows and Endless Dreams
Thank you for reading! Please take a moment to leave your thoughts in a comment, I truly enjoy and appreciate reading what you think about my long winded rambling.