Chapter Twenty

CHAPTER TWENTY
Ally or Enemy

Relief so strong it almost buckled my legs, flooded through me and I felt tears well in my eyes. I blinked them away so I could follow Alyssa’s quick furtive movements through the unfamiliar city. We skirted the battle and I gave a brief glance towards my fighting family, it was hard to see them fighting for us as hard as they were but I knew that if I was to disobey their orders that I would put them in more danger than if I got the prisoners to safety and waited for them to come back to me. As we followed Alyssa I felt a twinge of apprehension as we made our way from the battle, we seemed to be heading further into Voltera instead of out of the city. I was about to say something when Alyssa stopped and spoke “If we exit the city here than we have a greater chance of getting out alive than if we had’ve used the gate you entered through. You might want to check on your mate he is about to wake.” I swivelled on the balls of my feet in time to see Seth and Cameron struggling to hold a waking Jacob within their weakened grasps. I pushed past the others until I was standing beside Jake, touching his face gently I whispered “Hey baby, relax, we’re okay.” His dark eyes rolled within his head as he struggled to focus on me, his voice was rough as he husked “Nessie? Oh honey I am so glad to see you. Are you okay? What happened with the Volturi? Where are we, where is the rest of our family?” I huffed out a breath and said “I am fine. I am a lot stronger than you all give me credit for, the rest of our family are fighting for our escape and Alyssa here has been kind enough to help us find an out. We don’t have time for anything now” I said as I watched his eyes darken the way they did when he was feeling strongly about something but I needed to stop him because we really didn’t have the time to have any deep and meaningful conversations right then. “We will talk but first we need to get out of this blasted city and if you’re up to it we could use your help.” He shifted away from the helping hands of the other two men and wrapped me in a bear hug before setting me from him and saying, over the top of my head, to Alyssa “Thank you for helping us, now let’s get out of here.”

I looked over my shoulder into Alyssa’s watchful face; her red gaze seemed more contemplative than before maybe even saddened. She cocked her head in a way I was fast becoming used to as her ‘seeing’ what was coming. I tensed for barely a second before she said “Come, we can’t stay here anymore. They haven’t noticed that we’ve bailed but it won’t take them long to realise that your family are only diverting them and not actually fighting to kill.” A wry chuckle fell from her lips and with a shake of her head she muttered “A clan of vampires only pretending to fight, what the hell?” I sighed and said “I know it can be a lot but we will explain it all to you, I promise.” I walked back to the head of our posse and touched her shoulder gently. “That is the first time since I became a vampire that anyone has shown kindness.” even with the vampiric hearing I had I barely caught the words she spoke.

We exited Voltera and made our way cautiously around the outer edges of the city. The going was slow and I was becoming frustrated with the amounts of stops that our injured troupe required. Jake had slipped in and out of consciousness often and it was Alyssa’s visions that stopped him from hitting the ground, she always gave a heads’ up when his strength failed. I stayed at the head of our group, distancing myself from Jacob so I wouldn’t be tempted to ignore our mission and sit staring at his face, re-learning its beauty. I could feel his gaze on the back of my head, when he was conscious, and felt somewhat relieved when he wasn’t. We covertly made it three quarters of the way around the walled city before Alyssa stopped and hissed “They know that you have escaped! We need to blaze, move it!” I felt adrenalin rush through my system and it replaced my previous annoyance. I knew we were close to where we had entered Voltera because I could once again smell that overwhelming sickly sweet scent from before we entered the gates. I swallowed the nausea and focused on getting further away from the waring vampires. I took the lead once we were on the path I remembered from my hunt earlier in the day. The ailing werewolves kept good time and we made it to our base camp without incident.

The sight of the two storey, white stucco building that we had been calling home made my heart beat a bit faster; we shepherded everyone inside and locked the door, though we all knew that if any of the Volturi wanted in that the locked door wouldn’t stop them. The second we were over the threshold the emotions the werewolves had contained exploded; Leah rushed at Cameron and threw herself into his embrace, he held her tight and whispered gently into her ear. Alyssa sagged against the door and dropped her head back to stare up at the cracking paint on the ceiling before sinking down to the floor and burying her head into her knees. Antoinette and Vanessa hugged each other tightly, crying softly on each others’ shoulder. Seth deposited Jacob onto the chaise lounge in the sitting room before coming over to me and gripping my upper arms tightly, I recoiled slightly as his grip tightened. His eyes were wide and I could see the fear in them as he asked “Hayley? Is she alright? Did they hurt her?” I winced slightly as his fingers flexed but I answered him “She is fine, she felt some discomfort when they hurt you but that was all. Seth can you let go of my arms please, I might need them.” He dropped his gaze to where his hands were wrapped around my upper arms so tightly that my fingers were tingling, he looked surprised and said “Bugger, sorry ‘bout that Nessie.” before loosening his grip and rubbing the area his hands had been covering. I laughed and said “Don’t worry ‘bout it, I totally understand. Can you stand guard? I wanna go be with Jake when he wakes again.” He nodded and went and stood the opposite side of the door to Alyssa.

I walked into the sitting room, my eyes immediately going to the figure lying on the lounge. I hurried to his side and sunk down onto the carpet, taking his hand into mine. I kissed each grazed knuckle and took a mental note of all the cuts and bruises that covered his body. I don’t think my brain allowed me to see fully the damage that they had done to him in order for me to be able to function enough to escape but now that I could see the damage a rage the likes of which I had never know washed over me. I rose fluidly from the floor and rushed for the door, I reached for the handle and had the door opened before strong arms wrapped around me from behind. I didn’t recognise the scent of the person holding me and I growled low in the back of my throat “Let me go before I rip your arms off.” I heard Alyssa’s snort and I relaxed slightly. She didn’t let me go though; she just moved her arms so they weren’t crushing my stomach. Seth stepped in front of me and asked incredulously “Where the hell are you going?” I looked pleadingly up into his deep brown eyes and said “They hurt him Seth! What if it was Hayley? Wouldn’t you want some payback?” He shook his head and said “I know what they did to him. How do you think it felt to watch them do it to him? I understand that you want payback but I’m not gonna let you go back there, it’s a suicide mission. You saved him, go back in there and wait for him to wake up and when he does kiss him and think about how happy you are that he is safe.”

A logical part of my brain knew that what he was saying was true but my feelings were so much stronger than my logic that I snarled “NO! I want to rip them apart for doing this!” I felt Alyssa’s arms tighten slightly at the look that Seth shot her but I fought hard against their bind. I struggled until Seth said “If you have no regard for your life or for how much pain Jake will be in when he wakes up and you’re not here than think about your baby.” His words shocked me into stillness and I stared mutely up at him. He grinned wryly down at me and said “I was awake for Aro’s little show. Please don’t leave, I don’t think I could stop Jake if he wanted to go after you and in his condition he would surely die. Not to mention that I wouldn’t be a very good Uncle if I let you take my little niece or nephew back into a fight that you don’t need to be in.” I sagged into Alyssa’s embrace and she quickly passed me off to Seth who hugged me tightly as I cried out everything I had been feeling since we had escaped the Volturi. He held me for a long time before Alyssa’s voice broke the silence “Your family are coming.” I leapt from Seth’s embrace and ripped the door open. Battles are fierce and there are always casualties but when your family are strong and immortal you never think anything could hurt them. All I saw was my family, in their entirety, walking towards me. It took me several seconds to realise that they were far from being okay. They were smeared with blood and soot, my fractured brain had trouble processing why they would be covered with soot, I focused on each of them singularly; the first to draw my attention was my mother, she looked haggard but whole. My Dad was second and I sucked in a ragged breath as I realised that he was limping and carrying his left arm cradled against his chest. Carlisle and Esme were next and I was relieved to see that they seemed completely intact; the same went for Rosalie, Emmett and Jasper. It was then that my gaze fell to the make-shift stretcher they carried. Lying in pieces was the loving figure of Alice, she looked tiny and at first I couldn’t understand what I was seeing, I didn’t want to comprehend that I would never see her smile or go vague with ‘sight’. I must have made some small noise because the saddened faces of my family glanced my way. I raced across the small square of grass that constituted the front yard of our base camp; I wanted to get closer, to help in some small way – vampires can only ‘die’ if they are dismembered and their remains burned. I was stopped short by an overwhelming feeling of desolation and pain, my eyes flew back to Jasper and I could see in their depths a barely controlled fury. My father stepping in front of me saying “Renesmee don’t. We will try and help her but we have no guarantee that it’ll work, we think we have all of her but ...” I heard Jasper’s snarl ripple towards us and I knew that he wasn’t actually angry at us but the ferociousness of that snarl reminded me that for a long time Jasper was a trained killer and that he hadn’t used his conscious to determine his life, his actions had been fuelled by greed and gluttony. I felt anger and pain that wasn’t mine and I knew then that Jasper had lost control, he couldn’t control the emotions around him because his own were in such a bad shape. I wanted to hug him, to help him get through what needed to be done but I also knew, instinctively, that this was something he had to deal with on his own.