Krista's Prompts - 10. Prompt 113 - Fanfiction

PT 113 - The Hunted

It was inevitable, I should have known that going in. Looking around at the sunlit spot I chose overlooking a lake. I watched as campers shuffled out of their tents, none of them wise to my lurking. The disappearances started a month ago, two years after the impasse out on that frozen meadow.

Curiosity, that is what I blame this on. News of a special child or immortal abomination swirled around Forks Washington and I had to see it for myself. It wasn’t everyday that Volturi left their castle in Italy either, not with a full guard. The last time an immortal child, a young toddler was changed into a vampire, it brought a wrath of destruction along with it. The only thing that could be done to stop the massacre was to destroy it and the Volturi did that, along with the creator of the thing.

Now it seemed they were about to do it again.

I arrived later, apprehensive about bearing witness to whatever waited for me. The Cullens were welcoming enough. They were willing to risk the safety of an entire town to protect this child. And when the beautiful creature touched my cheek, she spoke to me in a soft and encouraging voice inside my head, thanking me for my very presence in front of her. She also had a heartbeat, warmth to her touch that fluttered across my cheek, like a feather.

Later the wolves appeared and things got weird. The child's vampire parents allowed her to be scooped up by a meathead, stocky built all smiles kind of dude, and warm brown eyes. He was shirtless and stunk, but she didn’t mind with a small smile playing on her lips.

It was later that I found out that his name was Jacob and that he was raising his future wife, the abhorrent thought I hoped didn’t rest on my face. A human hybrid vampire and a wolf, no telling what would come from that union as it was, I wondered if I was the only one worried about that outcome. Renesme was her name and of all the names given to such a pure looking creature, they went with that. It didn’t roll off the tongue at all, but it had significance to them so I wasn’t going to judge.

I didn’t remember the significance behind my name, if there were any, I had been too far gone from that past to recall much of it. That is what time does, it takes small things away if you let it and we have all the time in the world. If we idled too much in the now we could lose too much of it, and we wouldn’t realize it until it was too late and the memories long dead.

The story of how Renesme even came to be was new to me. It made no sense how something so crucial could have survived hundreds of years, when nothing else, not even our hearts survived the change. Then Edward apparently was rather boring, looking at him - his put together way about him didn’t do anything for me. Maybe it didn’t do much for anyone else either, not even his own hand. He surely had coveted something, or had momentary lapses from his perfection before that one time it took.

It was also later that I found out that he could read minds and had overheard everything I thought. With a smirk and a glint to his eye he told me, but I was far too gone from human feelings to be embarrassed, instead I smiled and excused myself. Distance was the friend that I liked and all these vampires gathering with different beliefs, voices, and personality was getting to be too much anyhow.

The Cullens were an exceptionally strong family group. At the head was a doctor that completely acclimated himself into the lives of humans. Alice could predict futures based on the decisions we made, that is how she knew Renesme was in danger and that the Volturi were even coming. Jasper can change the mood of everyone near him, he could enrage them, or make them cower from some unseen torment. He never did anything though, just stood there silent and watchful, like a dog at the foot of his master. Emmett was strong, but dim between the ears. Lastly Esme was optimistic and motherly and Rosalee bitter, just bitter. Bella, freshly turned, still had a deep blood red to her eyes that only faded with time. She was learning to cast an engulfing shield that everyone hoped would slow the lethal Volturi when they arrived. She looked more like me than the rest of the alien Cullens with the yellow glow of their eyes. A diet of animal blood, which for some inexplicable reason changed their eye color over time.

I tried it once, but I didn't care for it. There is nothing more innocent in the world than an animal and taking that away so easily didn’t sit well with me. I’d much rather hunt down the scourge of violence and vice, I was never short on prey.

Long story short, the shield Bella cast was enough to discourage the Volturi from attacking. Irrefutable evidence right in front of them with Alice playing out the battle before the first blow landed. They didn’t know how her power truly worked, Aro and his kind saw the fall of their empire. For beings so used to punching down, losing would have been something to see. The wolves worried them, they were something they thought long extinct by their own hands. In their own way they were a crack in their legacy too, it unnerved them anyway, that much was obvious.

Renesme also wasn’t an immortal child, a difficult adjustment for them to make. There she sat though, in Bella’s arms already older than the toddler they imagined when they were tipped off to her existence.

That is where my idiocy comes into this. The only reason they were here, any of us were here, was because of the Cullens’ cousin. Irina, a fair haired beautiful creature, sat in the middle of the meadow, slowly realizing that she was the scapegoat in a poor revenge plot. Aro had her brought forward and forced her to scream out her confession that she was wrong. I knew what happened next, the only thing that could happen. Blood had to be shed this day, power had to be wrought, examples had to be made, and the target, the only thing within their reach was Irina and I hated to see beautiful things destroyed.

So, before I knew what I was about to do, I ran forward. I felt Bella’s shield fall away from me as I crossed the distance between the two would be war parties, I yelled out her name, foreign to my lips and only known because her sisters screamed it when they saw her. Her executioners stopped just long enough, the fraction of a moment I needed to leap and when I landed in the middle of the scrum, I hated myself for smiling. They backed up as I grabbed her hand, her dark black and starved eyes staring back at me. I told her to hold on to me as the wave of pain I knew was coming hit me squarely in my chest.

Jane, we all knew who she was. The weapon Aro wielded when he needed someone brought unapologetically to their knees. Her small frame was standing just to the right of him with her brother Alec at her side. I screamed as my knees hit the snow that I couldn’t feel. Willing my eyes to open, I turned as hands grabbed at my shoulders to hold me there. To be destroyed if all this failed. They couldn’t hold me though, I had a secret too. I had the ability to deflect and return the force acting against me, if I had time to sense it or knew it was coming. The birth of it was mostly involuntary, a reaction that took me a century to control and when the surge of energy gathered in my chest then swept to my left hand, I looked over my shoulder. Still on my knees I balled my hand into a fist then thrust it towards Jane. When they saw her thrown backwards, they all went still and it was silent. The pain in my chest was gone and I could focus again.

Not wasting our chance, I looked up at Irina’s executioners before pulling her up with me. We ran until I felt the relief of the shield fall over me. I handed Irina’s hand to her sister closest to her and they embraced as I watched before turning back towards the Volturi across the meadow.

I had taken away their pound of flesh. The participation trophy for coming out here and falling well short of their goal of total and complete annihilation. The Cullens and their cohorts, we all should have been a pyre by now, burning to nothing but dust.

Two years of relative peace before the first disappearances began, that’s where I am at now. Mostly powerless loners at first, easily tracked down by Demetri with Felix and Jane alongside him. That is all the power they truly needed to wield on any given day. Felix as the muscle, Jane for more difficult targets, and Demetri for tracking. All he needed was to have been near you, or near anyone that you had ever known. He tracked through thoughts, fragments of memories. No one was safe, we had all stupidly gathered in that field, the needed one connection to link us all.

Hiding was no option and as I sat in this secluded forest, sporadic sunbeams hitting the forest floor, I knew as soon as Alice’s name flashed across my screen that I was next. I was alone, not wanting to adhere to the Cullen diet and be around the strangeness that was Jacob and his wolves.

I did follow Irina’s family back north to Alaska, it didn’t take me long to realize that Irina had the personality of a wet cat. So hung up on a true love that died months ago, like that was the only one she would ever have the opportunity to find. That we were held hard and fast, unrelenting and forever, by love. Those such bonds only existed in our minds, realistically it only hurt for a time that passed too fast for us to really ever grasp it once it's gone. When her eyes finally shifted and focused on me, I had to leave. I was not in love with her, I couldn’t return any of her feelings, I didn’t share them.

At the end of it all I knew I slighted the very ruling power for her, I knew that sort of thing wouldn’t go on and be forgotten. The only way they stayed in power was through fear and control. After that snowy meadow that was witnessed as tenuous at best. The only logical next step they had was to hunt us when we scattered back to our normal existence. The flaw in the Cullens’ plan should have been obvious, there was no greater plot hole in their story than that one and we would all pay for it one at a time.

“Joel,” Alice whispered as soon as I answered and I looked around the forest at every shadow, any glimmer that could have been them.

“I’ll be seeing you soon,” I said as I ended the call and shoved my phone back into my pocket. I needed to focus, I needed to find their direction of approach before they found me.

It didn’t take them long to materialize. Their dark cloaks flowed as they moved as one through the trees. Demetri flanked on either side by Jane and Felix. There was no use in running, I would be hunted like a fox in front of a pack of hounds. I wouldn’t lose them. Once Demetri was locked in, there was no stopping him. It was an unfair advantage, Aro collected such assets as he destroyed covens. The only reason any of them stood in front of me now, was because they had no equals.

“Why here?” Jane asked as they stopped a few yards away from me. There were no trees in their way, not like that mattered.

“Why not?” I asked, smiling when she smirked.

When her head tilted and she looked from me to the campground, she smiled again. Already guessing as to why I was here. I had been listening to them all morning, I was hunting in my own way. Waiting for a severely flawed thing to show itself. A campground was just secluded enough and if I didn’t overhear anything I could just as easily move away without any eyes falling on me.

“You were warned of our approach,” Demetri said as he stepped slightly forward, preparing to take another until my eyes landed on him.

“Yes,” I answered, “were the others warned as well?”

“We didn’t ask, their fear told us we were expected,” Jane answered, the same devilish smile that hardly ever wavered playing on her lips.

“Get on with it then,” I growled, no longer wanting to be part of their game. If they were to try me, I would go down on my terms. I wouldn’t be mocked or toyed with like a mouse tossed around by a cat.

“Wait,” Jane said as she flicked her hand towards me. I expected to feel pain, I balled my hands into fists prepared to send it back to her. I would have to fight Felix with bare hands though, I hoped I would be strong enough to win out on that front. “We’re not here for that, yet. Have some patience.”

“I will force your hand,” I hissed, unballing my fists.

“That would be unwise, truly,” Demetri countered, his deeper voice catching me off guard.

“Aro has instructed that we offer you a place with us,” Jane added when I was about to rush them.

“You mean, you’ll spare my life here today and I become part of his valued collection,” I said, squaring my shoulders just as a bird flitted through rays of the sun that reached us. I saw Demetri glance towards it before turning back to me. I was already thinking I had lost my chance. “I am dead if I refuse.”

“We can’t let you go,” Jane answered, her mouth closing to a smile as she waited for my answer. If I didn’t know her, the small girlish frame would be a hilarity for me, with as much power she had. All of them had.

“I know what happens to Aro’s collectibles when he finds something better,” I countered as I stepped forward. “I can die today or down the road, there is no difference to me.”

“As you wish,” Jane whispered as pain erupted from my chest and spread outwards.

“Stop, Jane,” Demetri growled just as I felt myself begin to redirect her power to my hands. “Give him a moment to reconsider.”

“Why not bring Corin in and end this?” Felix asked, my eyes shooting open as the pain stopped as quickly as it came.

“Are we even sure she is useful here?” Jane asked and I saw her smile widen as she peered over her shoulder. Looking past her I saw the fourth figure standing behind them.

Corin could convince you that you never loved the love of your life. In turn, she can convince you that you loved the one true enemy you ever had. She manipulated relationships, taking away all free will. As long as she was near you, to recharge your loyalty you were theirs to have. If she got close, I would kneel at their feet. I would throw myself in front of them. I would have no choice, I would be blindly loyal.

“No,” Demetri hissed, “let him decide for himself.”

“That is not what Aro instructed,” Corin said from behind them and I knew, without a doubt, that I would never leave this forest under my own freedom. I would be dead or brainwashed, but I would no longer be me. I hadn’t anticipated this, Corin had only left Volterra twice now, that was at the meadow and now this. “We’re here to retrieve him and move on, we have other targets.”

“Quiet,” Felix said as he held out his hand. “Put an end to this, come forward Corin.”

“Fuck off,” I growled as I took a step back. Pain erupted inside me again and I collapsed back to the ground. Feeling Jane’s power fully engulfing me, I started to refocus it, only to have it disappear again.

“I honestly don’t know why Aro wants him,” Jane said as my eyes opened. Her head was tilted to the side not unlike a curious bird. “If I end my attack quickly enough, he can’t redirect it, he is pointless.”

“Aro wants him,” Corin said as she shouldered herself between Jane and Felix. They stepped forward with her as I got back to my feet. Her guards, to keep her safe. Looking across the last lingering distance between us I wondered why she held herself below Aro. She could turn all of their allegiances against him with one thought, she could reduce his power to nothing. She could release them all to have their own relationships for the first time in centuries. To me, she was more cruel than Jane ever could be, no one should have that kind of control.

“Do it, we’re here with you,” Felix said as I launched myself backwards and out of their reach, but I felt it. Like slow tentacles across my body. Corin was focused on me and she forced my focus onto her, she might as well have been the only thing in the forest, I wasn’t even there anymore. When the feeling reached my temples I closed my eyes as a breath hit my face.

“Come with me,” Corin whispered, her lips fluttering against my cheek. I felt the pull of her words on every part of me. “You are no longer alone, we are your home, the Volturi is home.”

“Stop,” I hissed as my eyes clenched tighter. I felt myself building to fight her as my regard for everyone I’ve ever known or had any semblance of an allegiance to slipped away.

“Come,” Corin repeated as my eyes fluttered open and the slow tentacles of her power pulled away from my head and slipped down to my arms to my hands. I felt her power fall from my fingertips like droplets of water during a gentle rainfall. My mind came rushing back to me like a best friend. She had failed, but the smile on her face told me that she thought she had succeeded.

Smiling, I nodded my head as I stepped forward as the four of them stepped backwards and fell in a line in front of me. The only way I could end this is to become the hunter and I would have to do that from the inside of their nest, one at a time.

“Are we ready to go home now?” I asked as I let my hands fall gently to my sides.

“I believe we are, yes,” Demetri answered and unlike the three cold smiles the other three shared, I saw the difference in his like night from day. He didn’t mask his frown until he turned to the others. I didn’t know if he knew, having an insight into my mind, I didn’t know what reach he had, but he, like the others, turned their back on me. It took all I had not to end them there, to break the fallacy before I ran into the one person that would send another ill-conceived plan to an end. Aro would know as soon as he touched my hand, he had the power to read every thought I ever had. I would be dead as soon as his finger slid across my skin if I wasn’t able to break through it like the others.

The hunter I would be, for however long that was I didn’t know.