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he started running faster. Did he assume Fred was with me? Riley would never see Fred again. It wasn’t five minutes later when everything changed. Raoul caught the scent. With a wild growl he was off. Riley had us so worked up that it took only the tiniest spark to set off an explosion. The others near Raoul had the scent, too, and then everyone went crazy. Riley’s harping on this human had overshadowed the rest of his instructions. We were hunters, not an army. There was no team. It was a race for blood. Even though I knew there were a lot of lies in the story, I couldn’t totally resist the scent. Running at the back of the pack, I had to cross it. Fresh. Strong. The human had been here recently, and she smelled so sweet. I was strong with all the blood we’d drunk last night, but it didn’t matter. I was thirsty. It burned. I ran after the others, trying to keep my head clear. It was all I could do to hold back a little, to stay behind the others. The closest person to me was Riley. He was… holding back, too? He shouted orders, mostly the same thing repeated. “Kristie, go around! Move around! Split off! Kristie, Jen! Break off!” His whole plan of the two-pronged ambush was self- destructing as we watched. Riley sped up to the main group and grabbed Sara’s shoulder. She snapped at him as he hurled her to the left. “Go around!” he shouted. He caught the blond kid whose name I’d never figured out and shoved him into Sara, who clearly wasn’t happy with that. Kristie came out of the hunting focus long enough to realize she was supposed to be moving strategically.
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She gave one fierce gaze after Raoul and then started screeching at her team. “This way! Faster! We’ll beat them around and get to her first! C’mon!” “I’m spear point with Raoul!” Riley shouted at her, turning away. I hesitated, still running forward. I didn’t want to be part of any “spear point,” but Kristie’s team was already turning on each other. Sara had the blond kid in a headlock. The sound of his head tearing off made my decision for me. I sprinted after Riley, wondering if Sara would pause to burn the boy who liked to play Spider-Man. I caught up enough to see Riley ahead and followed at a distance until he got to Raoul’s team. The scent made it hard to keep my mind on the things that mattered. “Raoul!” Riley yelled. Raoul grunted, not turning. He was totally absorbed by the sweet scent. “I’ve got to help Kristie! I’ll meet you there! Keep your focus! ” I jerked to a stop, frozen with uncertainty. Raoul kept on, not showing any response to Riley’s words. Riley slowed to a jog, then a walk. I should have moved, but he probably would have heard me try to hide. He turned, a smile on his face, and saw me. “Bree. I thought you were with Kristie.” I didn’t respond. “I heard someone get hurt Kristie needs me more than
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Raoul,” he explained quickly. “Are you… leaving us?” Riley’s face changed. It was like I could see his shifting tactics written on his features. His eyes widened, suddenly anxious. “I’m worried, Bree. I told you that she was going to meet us, to help us, but I haven’t crossed her trail. Something’s wrong. I need to find her.” “But there’s no way you can find her before Raoul gets to the yellow-eyes,” I pointed out. “I have to find out what’s going on.” He sounded genuinely desperate. “I need her. I wasn’t supposed to do this alone!” “But the others…” “Bree, I have to go find her! Now! There are enough of you to overwhelm the yellow-eyes. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.” He sounded so sincere. I hesitated, glancing back the way we had come. Fred would be halfway to Vancouver by now. Riley hadn’t even asked about him. Maybe Fred’s talent was still in effect. “Diego’s down there, Bree,” Riley said urgently. “He’ll be part of the first attack. Didn’t you catch his scent back there? Did you not get close enough?” I shook my head, totally confused. “Diego was there?” “He’s with Raoul by now. If you hurry, you can help him get out alive.” We stared at each other for a long second, and then I looked south after Raoul’s path.
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“Good girl,” Riley said. “I’ll go find her and we’ll be back to help clean up. You guys have got this! It might be over by the time you get there!” He took off in a direction perpendicular to our original path. I clenched my teeth at how sure he seemed of his way. Lying to the end. But it didn’t feel like I had a choice. I headed south in a flat- out sprint again. I had to go get Diego. Drag him away if it came to that. We could catch up with Fred. Or take off on our own. We needed to run. I would tell Diego how Riley had lied. He would see that Riley had no intention of helping us fight the battle he’d set up. There was no reason to help him anymore. I found the human’s scent and then Raoul’s. I didn’t catch Diego’s. Was I going too fast? Or was the human’s scent just overpowering me? Half my head was absorbed in this strangely counterproductive hunt sure, we would find the girl, but would we be ready to fight together when we did? No, we’d be clawing each other apart to get to her. And then I heard the snarling and screaming and screeching explode from ahead and I knew the fight was happening and I was too late to beat Diego there. I only ran faster. Maybe I could still save him. I smelled the smoke the sweet, thick scent of vampires burning carried back to me on the wind. The sound of mayhem was louder. Maybe it was almost done. Would I find our coven victorious and Diego waiting? I dashed through a heavy fringe of smoke and found myself out of the forest in a huge grassy field. I leaped over a rock, only
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to realize in the instant I flew past it that it was a headless torso. My eyes raked the field. There were pieces of vampires everywhere, and a huge bonfire smoking purple into the sunny sky. Out from under the billowing haze, I could see dazzling, glittering bodies darting and grappling as the sounds of vampires being torn apart went on and on. I looked for one thing: Diego’s curly black hair. No one I could see had hair so dark. There was one huge vampire with brown hair that was almost black, but he was too big, and as I focused I watched him tear Kevin’s head off and pitch it into the fire before leaping on someone else’s back. Was that Jen? There was another with straight black hair that was too small to be Diego. That one was moving so fast I couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl. I scanned quickly again, feeling horribly exposed. I took in the faces. There weren’t nearly enough vampires here, even counting those that were down. I didn’t see any of Kristie’s group. There must have been a lot of vampires burned already. Most of the vampires still standing were strangers. A blond vampire glanced at me, meeting my gaze, and his eyes flashed gold in the sunlight. We were losing. Bad. I started backing toward the trees, not moving fast enough because I was still looking for Diego. He wasn’t here. There was no sign he had ever been here. No trace of his scent, though I could distinguish the smells of most of Raoul’s team and many strangers. I had made myself look at the pieces, too. None of them belonged to Diego. I would have recognized even
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a finger. I turned and really ran for the trees, suddenly positive that Diego’s presence here was just another of Riley’s lies. And if Diego wasn’t here, then he was already dead. This fell into place for me so easily that I thought I must have known the truth for a while. Since the moment that Diego had not followed Riley through the basement door. He’d already been gone. I was a few feet into the trees when a force like a wrecking ball hit me from behind and threw me to the ground. An arm slipped under my chin. “Please!” I sobbed. And I meant please kill me fast. The arm hesitated. I didn’t fight back, though my instincts were urging me to bite and claw and rip the enemy apart. The saner part of me knew that wasn’t going to work. Riley had lied about these weak, older vampires, too, and we’d never had a chance. But even if I’d had a way to beat this one, I wouldn’t have been able to move. Diego was gone, and that glaring fact killed the fight in me. Suddenly I was airborne. I crashed into a tree and crumpled to the ground. I should have tried to run, but Diego was dead. I couldn’t get around that. The blond vampire from the clearing was staring intently at me, his body ready to spring. He looked very capable, much more experienced than Riley. But he wasn’t lunging at me. He wasn’t crazed like Raoul or Kristie. He was totally in control. “Please,” I said again, wanting him to get this over with. “I don’t want to fight.”
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Though he still held himself ready, his face changed. He looked at me in a way I didn’t totally get. There was a lot of knowledge in that face, and something else. Empathy? Pity, at least. “Neither do I, child,” he said in a calm, kind voice. “We are only defending ourselves.” There was such honesty in his odd yellow eyes that it made me wonder how I had ever believed any of Riley’s stories. I felt… guilty. Maybe this coven had never planned to attack us in Seattle. How could I trust any part of what I’d been told? “We didn’t know,” I explained, somehow ashamed. “Riley lied. I’m sorry.” He listened for a moment, and I realized that the battlefield was quiet. It was over. If I’d been in any doubt over who the winner was, that doubt was gone when, a second later, a female vampire with wavy brown hair and yellow eyes hurried to his side. “Carlisle?” she asked in a confused voice, staring at me. “She doesn’t want to fight,” he told her. The woman touched his arm. He was still tensed to spring. “She’s so frightened, Carlisle. Couldn’t we…” The blond, Carlisle, glanced back at her, and then he straightened up a little, though I could see he was still wary. “We have no wish to harm you,” the woman said to me. She had a soft, soothing voice. “We didn’t want to fight any of you.” “I’m sorry,” I whispered again. I couldn’t make sense of the mess in my head. Diego was dead, and that was the main thing, the devastating thing. Other
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than that, the fight was over, my coven had lost and my enemies had won. But my dead coven was full of people who would have loved to watch me burn, and my enemies were speaking to me kindly when they had no reason to. Moreover, I felt safer with these two strangers than I’d ever felt with Raoul and Kristie. I was relieved that Raoul and Kristie were dead. It was so confusing. “Child,” Carlisle said, “will you surrender to us? If you do not try to harm us, we promise we will not harm you.” And I believed him. “Yes,” I whispered. “Yes, I surrender. I don’t want to hurt anybody.” He held out his hand encouragingly. “Come, child. Let our family regroup for a moment, then we’ll have some questions for you. If you answer honestly, you have nothing to fear.” I got up slowly, making no movements that could be considered threatening. “Carlisle?” a male voice called. And then another yellow-eyed vampire joined us. Any sort of safety I’d felt with these strangers vanished as soon as I saw him. He was blond, like the first, but taller and leaner. His skin was absolutely covered in scars, spaced most thickly together on his neck and jaw. A few small marks on his arm were fresh, but the rest were not from the brawl today. He had been in more fights than I could have imagined, and he’d never lost. His tawny eyes blazed and his stance exuded the barely contained violence of an angry lion.
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As soon as he saw me he coiled to spring. “Jasper!” Carlisle warned. Jasper pulled up short and stared at Carlisle with wide eyes. “What’s going on?” “She doesn’t want to fight. She’s surrendered.” The scarred vampire’s brow clouded, and suddenly I felt an unexpected surge of frustration, though I had no idea what I was frustrated with. “Carlisle, I…” He hesitated, then continued, “I’m sorry, but that’s not possible. We can’t have any of these newborns associated with us when the Volturi come. Do you realize the danger that would put us in?” I didn’t understand exactly what he was saying, but I got enough. He wanted to kill me. “Jasper, she’s only a child,” the woman protested. “We can’t just murder her in cold blood!” It was strange to hear her speak like we both were people, like murder was a bad thing. An avoidable thing. “It’s our family on the line here, Esme. We can’t afford to have them think we broke this rule.” The woman, Esme, walked between me and the one who wanted to kill me. Incomprehensibly, she turned her back to me. “No. I won’t stand for it.” Carlisle shot me an anxious glance. I could see that he cared a lot for this woman. I would have looked the same way at anyone behind Diego’s back. I tried to appear as docile as I felt. “Jasper, I think we have to take the chance,” he said slowly.
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“We are not the Volturi. We follow their rules, but we do not take lives lightly. We will explain.” “They might think we created our own newborns in defense.” “But we didn’t. And even had we, there was no indiscretion here, only in Seattle. There is no law against creating vampires if you control them.” “This is too dangerous.” Carlisle touched Jasper’s shoulder tentatively. “Jasper. We cannot kill this child.” Jasper glowered at the man with the kind eyes, and I was suddenly angry. Surely he wouldn’t hurt this gentle vampire or the woman he loved. Then Jasper sighed, and I knew it was okay. My anger evaporated. “I don’t like this,” he said, but he was calmer. “At least let me take charge of her. You two don’t know how to deal with someone who’s been running wild so long.” “Of course, Jasper,” the woman said. “But be kind.” Jasper rolled his eyes. “We need to be with the others. Alice said we don’t have long.” Carlisle nodded. He held his hand out to Esme, and they headed past Jasper back toward the open field. “You there,” Jasper said to me, his face a glower again. “Come with us. Don’t make one rash move or I will take you down.” I felt angry again as he glared at me, and a small part of me wanted to snarl and show my teeth, but I had a feeling he was looking for just that kind of excuse. Jasper paused as if he’d just thought of something. “Close
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your eyes,” he commanded. I hesitated. Had he decided to kill me after all? “Do it!” I gritted my teeth and shut my eyes. I felt twice as helpless as I had before. “Follow the sound of my voice and don’t open your eyes. You look, you lose, got it?” I nodded, wondering what he didn’t want me to see. I felt some relief that he was bothering to protect a secret. There was no reason to do so if he was just going to kill me. “This way.” I walked slowly after him, careful to give him no excuses. He was considerate in the way he led, not walking me into any trees, at least. I could hear the way the sound changed when we were in the open; the feel of the wind was different, too, and the smell of my coven burning was stronger. I could feel the warmth of the sun on my face, and the insides of my eyelids were brighter as I sparkled. He led me closer and closer to the muffled crackle of the flames, so close that I could feel the smoke brush my skin. I knew he could have killed me at any time, but the nearness of the fire still made me nervous. “Sit here. Eyes closed.” The ground was warm from the sun and the fire. I kept very still and tried to concentrate on looking harmless, but I could feel his glare on me, and it made me agitated. Though I was not mad at these vampires, who I truly believed had only been defending themselves, I felt the oddest stirrings of fury. It was
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almost outside myself, as if it were some leftover echo from the battle that had just taken place. The anger didn’t make me stupid, though, because I was too sad miserable to my core. Diego was aways in my mind, and I couldn’t help thinking about how he must have died. I was sure there was no way he would have voluntarily told Riley our secrets secrets that had given me a reason to trust Riley just enough until it was too late. In my head, I saw Riley’s face again that cold, smooth expression that had formed as he’d threatened to punish any of us who wouldn’t behave. I heard again his macabre and oddly detailed description when I take you to her and hold you as she tears off your legs and then slowly, slowly burns off your fingers, ears, lips, tongue, and every other superfluous appendage one by one. I realized now that I’d been hearing the description of Diego’s death. That night, I’d been sure that something had changed in Riley. Killing Diego was what had changed Riley, had hardened him. I believed only one thing that Riley had ever told me: he had valued Diego more than any of the rest of us. Had even been fond of him. And yet he’d watched our creator hurt him. No doubt he’d helped her. Killed Diego with her. I wondered how much pain it would have taken to make me betray Diego. I imagined it would have taken quite a lot. And I was sure it had taken at least that much to make Diego betray me. I felt sick. I wanted the image of Diego screaming in agony out of my head, but it wouldn’t leave.
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And then there was screaming there in the field. My eyelids fluttered, but Jasper snarled furiously and I clenched them together at once. I’d seen nothing but heavy lavender smoke. I heard shouting and a strange, savage howling. It was loud, and there was a lot of it. I couldn’t imagine how a face would have to contort to create such a noise, and the not knowing made the sound more frightening. These yellow-eyed vampires were so different from the rest of us. Or different from me, I guess, since I was the only one left. Riley and our creator were long gone by now. I heard names called, Jacob, Leah, Sam. There were lots of distinct voices, though the howls continued. Of course Riley had lied to us about the number of vampires here, too. The sound of the howling tapered off until it was just one voice, one agonized, inhuman yowling that made me grit my teeth. I could see Diego’s face so clearly in my mind, and the sound was like him screaming. I heard Carlisle talking over the other voices and the howling. He was begging to look at something. “Please let me take a look. Please let me help.” I didn’t hear anyone arguing with him, but for some reason his tone made it sound like he was losing the dispute. And then the yowling reached a strident new pitch, and suddenly Carlisle was saying “thank you” in a fervent voice, and under the yowl there was the sound of a lot of movement by a lot of bodies. Many heavy footsteps coming closer. I listened harder and heard something unexpected and
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impossible. Along with some heavy breathing and I’ve never heard anyone in my coven breathe like that there were dozens of deep thumping noises. Almost like… heartbeats. But definitely not human hearts. I knew that particular sound well. I sniffed hard, but the wind was blowing from the other direction, and I could only smell the smoke. Without a warning sound, something touched me, clapped down firmly on either side of my head. My eyes started open in panic as I lurched up, straining to jerk free of this hold, and instantly met Jasper’s warning gaze about two inches from my face. “Stop it,” he snapped, yanking me back down on my butt. I could only just hear him, and I realized that his hands were sealed tight against my head, covering my ears entirely. “Close your eyes,” he instructed again, probably at a normal volume, but it was hushed for me. I struggled to calm myself and shut my eyes again. There were things they didn’t want me to hear, either. I could live with that if it meant I could live. For a second I saw Fred’s face behind my eyelids. He had said he would wait for one day. I wondered if he would keep his word. I wished I could tell him the truth about the yellow-eyes, and how much more there seemed to be that we didn’t know. This whole world that we really knew nothing about. It would be interesting to explore that world. Particularly with someone who could make me invisible and safe. But Diego was gone. He wouldn’t be coming to find Fred with me. That made imagining the future faintly repugnant.
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I could still hear some of what was going on, but just the howling and a few voices. Whatever those weird thumping sounds had been, they were too muted now for me to examine them. I did make out the words when, a few minutes later, Carlisle said, “You have to…” his voice was too low for a second, and then “… from here now. If we could help we would, but we cannot leave.” There was a growl, but it was oddly unmenacing. The yowling became a low whine that disappeared slowly, as if it was moving away from me. It was quiet for a few minutes. I heard some low voices, Carlisle and Esme among them, but also some I didn’t know. I wished I could smell something the blindness combined with the muted sound left me straining for some source of sensory information. But all I could smell was the horribly sweet smoke. There was one voice, higher and clearer than the others, that I could hear most easily. “Another five minutes,” I heard whoever it was say. I was sure it was a girl who was speaking. “And Bella will open her eyes in thirty-seven seconds. I wouldn’t doubt that she can hear us now.” I tried to make sense of this. Was someone else being forced to keep her eyes shut, like me? Or did she think my name was Bella? I hadn’t told anyone my name. I struggled again to smell something. More mumbling. I thought that one voice sounded off I couldn’t hear any ring to it at all. But I couldn’t be sure with
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Jasper’s hands so securely over my ears. “Three minutes,” the high, clear voice said. Jasper’s hands left my head. “You’d better open your eyes now,” he told me from a few steps away. The way he said this frightened me. I looked around myself quickly, searching for the danger hinted at in his tone. One whole field of my vision was obscured by the dark smoke. Close by, Jasper was frowning. His teeth were gritted together and he was looking at me with an expression that was almost… frightened. Not like he was scared of me, but like he was scared because of me. I remembered what he’d said before, about my putting them in danger with something called a Volturi. I wondered what a Volturi was. I couldn’t imagine what this scarred-up, dangerous vampire would be afraid of. Behind Jasper, four vampires were spaced out in a loose line with their backs to me. One was Esme. With her were a tall blonde woman, a tiny black-haired girl, and a dark-haired male vampire so big that he was scary just to look at the one I’d seen kill Kevin. For an instant I imagined that vampire getting a hold on Raoul. It was a strangely pleasant picture. There were three more vampires behind the big one. I couldn’t see exactly what they were doing with him in the way. Carlisle was kneeling on the ground, and next to him was a male vampire with dark red hair. Lying flat on the ground was another figure, but I couldn’t see much of that one, only jeans and small brown boots. It was either a female or a young male. I wondered if they were putting the vampire back together.
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So eight yellow-eyes total, plus all that howling before, whatever strange kind of vampire that had been; there had been at least eight more voices involved. Sixteen, maybe more. More than twice as many as Riley had told us to expect. I found myself fiercely hoping that those black-cloaked vampires would catch up to Riley, and that they would make him suffer. The vampire on the ground started to get slowly to her feet moving awkwardly, almost like she was some clumsy human. The breeze shifted, blowing the smoke across me and Jasper. For a moment, everything was invisible except for him. Though I was not as blind as before, I suddenly felt much more anxious, for some reason. It was like I could feel the anxiety bleeding out of the vampire next to me. The light wind gusted back in the next second, and I could see and smell everything. Jasper hissed at me furiously and shoved me out of my crouch and back onto the ground. It was her the human I’d been hunting just a few minutes ago. The scent my whole body had been focused toward. The sweet, wet scent of the most delicious blood I’d ever tracked. My mouth and throat felt like they were on fire. I tried wildly to hold on to my reason to focus on the fact that Jasper was just waiting for me to jump up again so that he could kill me but only part of me could do it. I felt like I was about to pull into two halves trying to keep myself here. The human named Bella stared at me with stunned brown eyes. Looking at her made it worse. I could see the blood
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flushing through her thin skin. I tried to look anywhere else, but my eyes kept circling back to her. The redhead spoke to her in a low voice. “She surrendered. That’s one I’ve never seen before. Only Carlisle would think of offering. Jasper doesn’t approve.” Carlisle must have explained to that one when my ears were covered. The vampire had both his arms around the human girl, and she had both hands pressed to his chest. Her throat was just inches from his mouth, but she didn’t look frightened of him at all. And he didn’t look like he was hunting. I had tried to wrap my head around the idea of a coven with a pet human, but this was not close to what I had imagined. If she’d been a vampire, I would have guessed that they were together. “Is Jasper all right?” the human whispered. “He’s fine. The venom stings,” the vampire said. “He was bitten?” she asked, sounding shocked by the idea. Who was this girl? Why did the vampires allow her to be with them? Why hadn’t they killed her yet? Why did she seem so comfortable with them, like they didn’t scare her? She seemed like she was a part of this world, and yet she didn’t understand its realities. Of course Jasper was bitten. He’d just fought and destroyed my entire coven. Did this girl even know what we were? Ugh, the burn in my throat was impossible! I tried not to think about washing it away with her blood, but the wind was blowing her smell right in my face! It was too late to keep my head I had scented the prey I was hunting, and nothing could change
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that now. “He was trying to be everywhere at once,” the redhead told the human. “Trying to make sure Alice had nothing to do, actually.” He shook his head as he looked at the tiny black- haired girl. “Alice doesn’t need anyone’s help.” The vampire named Alice shot a glare at Jasper. “Overprotective fool,” she said in her clear soprano voice. Jasper met her stare with a half smile, seeming to forget for a second that I existed. I could barely fight the instinct that wanted me to make use of his lapse and spring at the human girl. It would take less than an instant and then her warm blood blood I could hear pumping through her heart would quench the burn. She was so close The vampire with the dark red hair met my eyes with a fierce warning glare, and I knew I would die if I tried for the girl, but the agony in my throat made me feel like I would die if I didn’t. It hurt so much that I screamed out loud in frustration. Jasper snarled at me, and I tried to keep myself from moving, but it felt like the scent of her blood was a giant hand yanking me off the ground. I had never tried to stop myself from feeding once I had committed to a hunt. I dug my hands into the ground looking for something to hold on to but finding nothing. Jasper leaned into a crouch, and even knowing I was two seconds from death, I couldn’t focus my thirsty thoughts. And then Carlisle was right there, his hand on Jasper’s arm. He looked at me with kind, calm eyes. “Have you changed your mind, young one?” he asked me. “We don’t want to destroy you,
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but we will if you can’t control yourself.” “How can you stand it?” I asked him, almost begging. Wasn’t he burning, too? “I want her.” I stared at her, desperately wishing the distance between us was gone. My fingers raked uselessly through the rocky dirt. “You must stand it,” Carlisle said solemnly. “You must exercise control. It is possible, and it is the only thing that will save you now.” If being able to tolerate the human the way these strange vampires did was my only hope for survival, then I was already doomed. I couldn’t stand the fire. And I was of two minds about survival anyway. I didn’t want to die, I didn’t want pain, but what was the point? Everyone else was dead. Diego had been dead for days. His name was right on my lips. I almost whispered it aloud. Instead, I gripped my skull with both hands and tried to think about something that wouldn’t hurt. Not the girl, and not Diego. It didn’t work very well. “Shouldn’t we move away from her?” the human whispered roughly, breaking my concentration. My eyes snapped back to her. Her skin was so thin and soft. I could see the pulse in her neck. “We have to stay here,” said the vampire she was clinging to. “They are coming to the north end of the clearing now.” They? I glanced to the north, but there was nothing but smoke. Did he mean Riley and my creator? I felt a new thrill of panic, followed by a little spasm of hope. There was no way she and Riley could stand against these vampires who had killed so
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many of us, was there? Even if the howly ones were gone, Jasper alone looked capable of dealing with the two of them. Or did he mean this mysterious Volturi? The wind teased the girl’s scent across my face again, and my thoughts scattered. I glared at her thirstily. The girl met my stare, but her expression was so different from what it should have been. Though I could feel that my lips were curled back from my teeth, though I trembled with the effort to stop myself from springing at her, she did not look afraid of me. Instead she seemed fascinated. It almost looked like she wanted to speak to me like she had a question she wanted me to answer. Then Carlisle and Jasper began to back away from the fire and me closing ranks with the others and the human. They all were staring past me into the smoke, so whatever they were afraid of was closer to me than it was to them. I huddled tighter to the smoke in spite of the nearby flames. Should I make a run for it? Were they distracted enough that I could escape? Where would I go? To Fred? Off on my own? To find Riley and make him pay for what he’d done to Diego? As I hesitated, mesmerized by that last idea, the moment passed. I heard movement to the north and knew I was sandwiched between the yellow-eyes and whatever was coming. “Hmm,” a dead voice said from behind the smoke. In that one syllable I knew exactly who it was, and if I hadn’t been frozen solid with mindless terror I would have bolted. It was the dark-cloaks.
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What did this mean? Would a new battle begin now? I knew that the dark-cloaked vampires had wanted my creator to succeed in destroying these yellow-eyes. My creator had clearly failed. Did that mean they would kill her? Or would they kill Carlisle and Esme and the rest here instead? If it had been my choice, I knew who I would want destroyed, and it wasn’t my captors. The dark-cloaks ghosted through the vapor to face the yellow-eyes. None of them looked in my direction. I held absolutely still. There were only four of them, like last time. But it didn’t make a difference that there were seven of the yellow-eyes. I could tell that they were as wary of these dark-cloaks as Riley and my creator had been. There was something more to them than I could see, but I could definitely feel it. These were the punishers, and they didn’t lose. “Welcome, Jane,” said the yellow-eyed one who held the human. They knew each other. But the redhead’s voice was not friendly nor was it weak and eager to please like Riley’s had been, or furiously terrified like my creator’s. His voice was simply cold and polite and unsurprised. Were the dark-cloaks this Volturi, then? The small vampire who led the dark-cloaks Jane, apparently slowly scanned across the seven yellow-eyes and the human, and then finally turned her head toward me. I glimpsed her face for the first time. She was younger than me, but much older, too, I guessed. Her eyes were the velvet color of
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dark red roses. Knowing it was too late to escape notice, I put my head down, covering it with my hands. Maybe if it were clear that I didn’t want to fight, Jane would treat me as Carlisle had. I didn’t feel much hope of that, though. “I don’t understand.” Jane’s dead voice betrayed a hint of annoyance. “She has surrendered,” the redhead explained. “Surrendered?” Jane snapped. I peeked up to see the dark-cloaks exchanging glances. The redhead had said that he’d never seen anyone surrender before. Maybe the dark-cloaks hadn’t, either. “Carlisle gave her the option,” the redhead said. He seemed to be the spokesperson for the yellow-eyes, though I thought Carlisle might be the leader. “There are no options for those who break the rules,” Jane said, her voice dead again. My bones felt like ice, but I didn’t feel panicked anymore. It all seemed so inevitable now. Carlisle answered Jane in a soft voice. “That’s in your hands. As long as she was willing to halt her attack on us, I saw no need to destroy her. She was never taught.” Though his words were neutral, I almost thought he was pleading for me. But, as he had said, my fate was not up to him. “That is irrelevant,” Jane confirmed. “As you wish.” Jane was staring at Carlisle with an expression that was half confusion and half frustration. She shook her head, and her face was unreadable again.
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“Aro hoped that we would get far enough west to see you, Carlisle,” she said. “He sends his regards.” “I would appreciate it if you would convey mine to him,” he answered. Jane smiled. “Of course.” Then she looked at me again, with the corners of her mouth still slightly holding the smile. “It appears that you’ve done our work for us today… for the most part. Just out of professional curiosity, how many were there? They left quite a wake of destruction in Seattle.” She spoke of jobs and professionals. I was right, then, that it was her profession to punish. And if there were punishers, then there must be rules. Carlisle had said before, We follow their rules, and also, There is no law against creating vampires if you control them. Riley and my creator had been afraid but not exactly surprised by the arrival of the dark-cloaks, these Volturi. They knew about the laws, and they knew they were breaking them. Why hadn’t they told us? And there were more Volturi than just these four. Someone named Aro and probably many more. There must have been a lot for everyone to fear them so much. Carlisle answered Jane’s question. “Eighteen, including this one.” There was a barely audible murmur among the four dark- cloaks. “Eighteen?” Jane repeated, a note of surprise in her voice. Our creator had never told Jane how many of us she’d created. Was Jane really surprised, or just faking it? “All brand-new,” Carlisle said. “They were unskilled.” Unskilled and uninformed, thanks to Riley. I was beginning
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to get a sense of how these older vampires viewed us. Newborn, Jasper had called me. Like a baby. “All?” Jane snapped. “Then who was their creator?” As if they hadn’t already been introduced. This Jane was a bigger liar than Riley, and she was so much better at it than he was. “Her name was Victoria,” the redhead answered. How did he know that when even I didn’t? I remembered that Riley had said there was a mind reader in this group. Was that how they knew everything? Or was that another of Riley’s lies? “Was?” Jane asked. The redhead jerked his head toward the east like he was pointing. I looked up and saw a cloud of thick lilac smoke billowing from the side of the mountain. Was. I felt a similar kind of pleasure to what I’d felt imagining the big vampire shredding Raoul. Only much, much greater. “This Victoria,” Jane asked slowly. “She was in addition to the eighteen here?” “Yes,” the redhead confirmed. “She had only one other with her. He was not as young as this one here, but no older than a year.” Riley. My fierce pleasure intensified. If okay, when I died today, at least I didn’t leave that loose thread. Diego had been avenged. I almost smiled. “Twenty,” Jane breathed. Either this was more than she had expected, or she was a killer actress. “Who dealt with the
