38. CHASE
Slowly, the once-kneeling figure began to stand up. I drew Edythe closer to me on instinct. I mean, we didn't know anything about Delia – Adelaide – and the role she played in what happened here earlier, I could still smell the smoke. Was she really on our side? Can we actually trust her? What was she capable of? Just how dangerous can she be? I heard the clang of the candelabra as she replaced it on a stone table sitting by the window and with slow, soundless footsteps she came nearer to us.
"I wouldn't get any closer if I were you. I know who you are." Edythe cautioned, her voice a rasped growl. "What happened here? How are you still alive?"
"Why don't you see for yourself?"
Edythe was taken aback. "How did you-"
"You aren't the only one with a gift, Edythe." Her voice, though still thick from crying, was a pleasant sound. "I know everything about you."
"A rather bold statement, don't you think?" Edythe curled her lip.
"I speak the truth." Adelaide's voice didn't even falter.
"Prove it."
"Very well, then." Adelaide managed in a quiet voice, touching a finger to her chin and beginning to pace back and forth in the room. "I know that you were born Edythe Alexandria Masen on June 20th, 1901 in Chicago, Illinois, the only child of an Edward and Elizabeth Masen. You were very close to your mother, and you enjoyed horseback riding. You were - and still are - an excellent musician. Your mother and father so loved you, you were their pride and joy." Adelaide's voice got even softer then, almost a whisper. It was strange and humbling hearing all that out loud and being reminded that Edythe had another life before this one. An ordinary (though personally, I don't think "ordinary" could ever have been used to describe her, human or not) girl, growing up in a different world; a different time and place. But by then I noticed Edythe had fallen silent. She looked shocked and almost… hurt. In pain. Her eyes looked wet and she moved away from me, taking a breath. Gently, her other hand came in to touch at her mother's ring, her fingers sweeping over the gems.
"It's been so long… I've almost forgotten what my parents looked like, but you've reminded me just now." She blinked like she was trying to hold back those invisible tears that wouldn't come. "My mother…" she whispered then came back to me, falling into my arms and laying her head on my chest. "I wish she could know about you," she touched my cheek with one hand then moved it to her stomach, her eyes looking down, "and you."
That we both wanted.
She turned to look at Adelaide again. "How is it that I can see my human memories in your thoughts?"
"Simple. As I've said before, this is my gift." Adelaide looked down at the palms of her hands. "Whenever I touch someone – anyone, vampire and human alike – their entire past; their entire history from the moment of their birth plays itself in my mind like a movie projector. Such was the case when I shook hands with you all that day - I suppose in that way, my gift is quite the opposite of your brother's over there." She motioned to Arch.
"I can see through the eyes of the people I touch straight into the essence of their memories and while I cannot read minds like you, Edythe, I know in my experience that everyone has a story and actions always speak louder than words." Adelaide's voice was hard; resolute. I'm not sure what it was, but there was something about her expression when she said that which made me feel… I don't know, bad for her. Maybe it was her eyes, wide; pulsing; unresolved. Hers were what I'd call blue on blue – like there was this deep ocean of sadness hiding behind them just drowning her, and she couldn't say a word. What exactly was her story?
"I judge the people I meet by what I can see of their past and what shaped them into the person they are today. For that, I knew you and your family were good ones."
"Good ones?" Edythe tilted a brow.
Adelaide nodded and let out a trembling breath, taking another second to answer us like she was choosing her words carefully. "With my gift, I am able to see a vampire's life both when they were human and after they had been turned - as well as every other moment of their lives up until the very second which they stood before me - in perfect clarity. For instance, I know, Edythe, that your mother and father tragically died of the Spanish Influenza and you, too, had contracted the illness yourself in your seventeenth summer and it would have surely taken you as well if it were not for this woman here, your attending nurse at the time, whom is your creator." Adelaide motioned to Carine then turned her eyes back on Edythe. "And I can also see that you've hunted humans for a brief period of time near the beginning of your new life, but had used your ability - that is, to read minds - to pick and choose your prey, only feeding on those who preyed on others in far more diabolical ways, if you understand what I am meaning." Adelaide laced her hands in front of her, swallowed, and rocked back on her heels a little, tilting her head to look at Edythe from the side like she was challenging her. "Am I not right in this?"
"Yes, you are." Edythe replied in a voice that trembled and quickly averted her gaze, unable to meet any of our eyes. I knew how those days haunted her; and to be made aware of them once again, in this way, I was angry at Adelaide for doing that to my wife but then I remembered her sad eyes; what memories could possibly be haunting her. And I let that anger go.
Adelaide looked out the window and crossed her arms over her chest, guarded again. "Being surrounded by vampires from the earliest years of my life, I knew the minute you walked in through my bar's doors that you and your family were no ordinary human beings. But I must confess Edythe, when I saw you, I could scarcely believe my eyes." She turned and looked right at Edythe now, eyes kind of shiny. "I have never once in my life met another individual like my mother, a vampire with the ability to bear children. Immediately, I knew your mate had to have been human, much like my own father was the night I had been conceived. For that, your story mesmerized me. Once I had pieced together all your histories, I was truly in awe, seeing how you all came to be a family." She eyed the rest of us then focused her gaze on Edythe again. "And then, to see how it was you and your husband fell in love with one another… and what the culmination of that love ultimately led to… it was nothing short of astounding." Her voice was wistful; distant.
"Enough about us, Adelaide. Tell me - no, rather, I want you to show me - what exactly happened in here?"
When Edythe said that, Adelaide took two hitching breaths like she was trying to compose herself and looked away, her hand coming up to touch at her now-trembling lips and her eyes fluttered shut. Edythe's forehead creased and her lips pressed tight together in concentration, laser-focused on whatever it was playing inside Adelaide's head.
And then their voices started up at the exact same time, perfectly in tandem like they were reading a script in a trance, numbed with pain and horror:
"You have been exiled once as forewarning, but for breaking your word you will have to pay with your lives."
So it really was our fault. They were dead because of us. My heart dipped into the pit of my stomach and my eyes felt all hot again.
"No…" Edythe breathed. She took a faltering step back and fell into my arms, like her legs locked then gave out. Like she just couldn't take it anymore.
"Calm down, Edythe; just take a few breaths, honey. Stress isn't good for you nor the baby." Carine coaxed, helping Edythe into a chair. I dropped down in front of my wife and took her hands in mine, stroking her knuckles. I would do anything to take her place; to carry that burden whole for the both of us so she wouldn't have to feel any of that pain.
"And now you know." Adelaide whispered with a solemn shake of her head.
"But then answer us this, Adelaide; Delia; whoever you are, what exactly are you still doing here? I thought the Volturi would bark and then you would heel, don't you think? Or are you just here to round us up and lead us like sheep to a slaughterhouse?" Royal's voice ripped from the back of his throat like a roll of thunder; low, threatening, yet loud enough to make the full-body mirror in the far-left corner of the room shudder as waves of vibration rolled off of it and echoed right back to us even when we were in the way back of the room, his eyes just brimming with fire so it looked like it could burn the whole place down. Edythe looked hard at her brother, mouth open and eyes shining in the cold afternoon glare of the sun. The same exact expression was on Jules' face now too, and everyone, like me, just stood there, stunned into silence. See, I already knew that Royal cared a lot about this family even when he didn't let it on. But to see that fire burning right there in his eyes again really drove that point home for me. Like us, he was angry, and upset, and confused by this turn of events. And, also like us, he was absolutely scared to death.
"I had no part in this." Adelaide shot back in a voice just as severe, throwing her hands wildly out about her. Edythe's eyes narrowed in concentration, picking apart Adelaide's thoughts. But then Edythe gasped and jumped back four steps with me, shaking her head in fear like she was a human being confronted by a venomous snake. Her crimson eyes were wide on Adelaide; pulsing, like water in a glass during an earthquake. And then Adelaide, with an expression on her face like one a burglar would make when you turned the lights on just as they were going through your best jewelry, tore her eyes away from my terrified wife and leapt from the second-story window, launching herself high up into the rapidly-graying sky at a height easily triple the size of Silas' house and drifted gracefully back down to the meadow floor, her feet landing perfectly on the soft earth nearly a hundred yards out. It was like watching a swan gliding into a lake, and all we could do was just stare, in wonder, horror, and disbelief all at once and she turned around to look at us with eyes like that of a wounded animal's before her top lip curled away from her teeth in a snarl. And then she was off, her bare feet pounding against the soft, muddy turf of the earth kind of slowly - for a vampire that is, though she could beat a freaking cheetah any old day at that speed nonetheless - before gaining enough momentum in the spring of her heels, and then she became this streaking blur, reminiscent of a speeding bullet, which whipped across the rest of the empty field and straight into the cluster of dark, looming trees which made up the forest area we'd just come out of. Clearly, we had underestimated her. Fits of lightning and thunder erupted in the sky, exploding like bombs as the clouds came rolling in, dashing away every last bit of the sun and then the rain started pouring down in gray, slanting sheets so everything outside the window looked like a blurry mist.
"What're we doing just standing around? We've gotta go after her!" Eleanor leapt off the balcony next and began to pursue Adelaide, just throwing herself all in as she pounded down the invisible pathway left in the wake of Adelaide's crazy-fast escape. "What are you waiting for? Come on!" she called loudly over her shoulder. With that, everyone else launched themselves out the window, too. Jules phased in midair and Edythe pulled me onto her back again before I could even protest and then we were off. The wind whistled in my ears and water streaked down my face as I was pelted by the cold rain, holding on tight with my arms wrapped around my wife's neck and letting my wrists dangle in front of her chest, her hard, freezing grip tight on them each. The world was a swirling blur in front of me as we dashed through the forest, Edythe ducking us out of the way of dark, low-hanging branches and careening around moss-covered formations.
"I know you can hear me, Adelaide! You can't run from us, you can't hide." Edythe's voice was a shrill, metallic sound, like it could physically cut through a wire fence. It made me wince into her back, she literally sounded that terrifying. And then she skidded to a stop before making a hard, veering U-turn, I'm guessing catching Adelaide's scent from the opposite direction and she bolted so fast that within one half of a second, I could no longer see Jules nor our other family members anymore. She leapt up and over the felled trunk of a tree before landing on another one, pushing off of it with one foot like it was a launchpad. I heard it snap in half when we were airborne, and then she surfed down the side of a steep, sloping cliff, the breeze which we created making the blades of tall grass look as if they were bowing down to her. My eyes stung and watered from the force of the wind slamming into them, the bottom of my pants getting soaked when Edythe trampled through the pockets of muddy rainwater on the forest floor. She snapped her head from left to right then made the decision to go straight on through an opening in another forested pathway, the dark, lumbering shadows of the ginormous trees splaying in oblong patterns all along the trajectory of the dirt trail in the broken shade. She turned another corner then another after that one too and in the bluish-gray distance, I could just barely make out a curtain of dangling vines some twenty meters ahead and immediately I knew Edythe was heading right for them.
And then it hit me that there was nothing behind those vines but a big old wall of rock.
"Watch out, Edythe!" I yelled, pointing.
She didn't answer, her pace only accelerating.
"Edythe!" I pled.
Still no answer.
"Slow down, Edythe! Right now!" If she didn't stop, we were headed for a straight-on collision. With both my hands on her shoulders, I yanked hard on them, trying to rein her back as best I could with the weight of my body.
"No!" she shrieked and frantically jabbed a finger straight out in front of her before her hands darted back in to grab at my wrists, her iron grip tightening around them both like handcuffs to get me to stop moving and it actually hurt, so I knew just how desperate she was. "Look closely, Beau!"
Frantically, I squinted my eyes in concentration. I didn't see anything at first through the haze of misty rain but when we got closer to the wall, I could just barely make out the outline of a partially-hidden figure dressed in white wedged tightly between the wall and this huge boulder, her head whipping from side-to-side so fast it was a ghostly blur, trying to calculate an escape route.
It was Adelaide.
And then I immediately understood it.
There was no way Edythe was letting her get away now. The ferocity of Edythe's strides almost scared me; she was literally pounding down the path like her life depended on it.
Less than one second later, we were now face-to-face with Adelaide. She let an inhuman growl rip from the back of her throat and bared her teeth at us. Edythe did the same and advanced forward on Adelaide, backing her into the wall of rock. Dropping me off her back, she launched herself at the girl, stopping just several inches from her face, her blood-red eyes burning with fury.
"Edythe! Think about what you're doing for one second." I threw myself in between the two of them, trying to hold Edythe back by the shoulders. If we weren't careful, things could seriously end badly here - for all of us.
"Step aside, Beau." She growled at me, the sound sending a shiver rocketing up and down my spine and chilling me to the bone. Still, I had to hold my ground.
"I'm not going to do that."
"I said move, Beau." Her hand darted for my wrist and she pushed me behind her protectively, holding me back.
"Be careful, Edythe." I begged in a pleading whisper, thinking about what she could have possibly seen earlier in Adelaide's head. She chuckled dryly.
"Don't worry about me." It sounded more like a command than a friendly suggestion and I swallowed, hard. Edythe's head snapped up, her blazing eyes finding Adelaide's again.
"Why did you do it?"
"I don't know what you're talking about." barked Adelaide, pressing her body flat up against the rock.
"Don't you play all innocent with me, Adelaide. I've already seen it in your head, you can't hide from me."
Frantically, I took her shoulder and shook it. "Edythe? What are you talking about? Tell me what you saw."
She didn't answer me, her eyes still intently fixed on Adelaide. She took another step forward and pulled her shoulders back, one foot firmly planted in front of the other in a defensive stance.
"Those nomads and those covens didn't just go missing, did they?" She shook her head in horror and disbelief. "Why did you do it?" she whispered, shoulders heaving, "Why did you kill them all?"
Author's Note:
Hi everyone!
I know this chapter was pretty short and ended on a little cliff hanger there, so I just wanted to quickly apologize for that. Initially, I had a much, much longer chapter planned out but after thinking it through a little more, I decided it would be best to split it into two or possibly three parts. Things have also been kind of crazy here lately and I've been super busy, I wasn't even sure at first that I could get an update out this month but here it is! I hope you guys liked it as much as I enjoyed writing it as I haven't done much action scenes in my works before, so it was fun to experiment with that a little bit. Oh, and guess who just started reading Stephenie Meyer's Breaking Dawn for the first time ever? My mom's thrilled I'm giving it a shot, haha. I'm really enjoying it!
As always, thank you for reading and for all the support! I love hearing from you all, your comments truly make my day! Y'all are amazing. Until next time :)