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All an Illusion

Out of the Water and into the Fire

“Please, just let us go! We’ve done nothing wrong. Jade doesn’t want this anymore, she doesn’t want to die anymore,” Fred growled helplessly from across the hall as he struggled against the two vampires that held him in a tight embrace.

“Tut… tut… tibi uni aequus adulescentibus; calm yourself young one. Your anger does yourself no good here.” Jade snapped out of her reverie as a sort of handsome middle aged vampire exited the shadows of the hallway and stepped into the centre of the hall. Jade recognised him at once as the vampire Alice had described so vivdly. His name was Aro and despite Alice’s obvious disgust of the vampire, Jade already hated him herself. She knew that he had to be hundreds of years old, yet he had this comical excited expression on his face as if he was a little boy entering a toy shop. He rubbed his hands eagerly together as he circled Jade and surveyed Fred. “It’s always such a shame; such a waste of a vampire… Though I’m not sure you’re entirely correct, Fred. I don’t think your friend is quite ready to leave her second life yet,” he said knowingly with a smug grin on his face.

Jade stiffened as he came closer. She didn’t like the smell and the death like atmosphere that clung to the Volturi. The Cullens lived the opposite of a stereotypical vampire life that you would expect. Instead they had an open, light filled home, with modern structure and furniture. And they had treated her with the kindest of hospitality, all for her to do what? Throw it back in their faces? How exactly had she got from there to here? When she was with them her thoughts and actions had all been clouded with her great horror and disgust at being a monster. All she could think about was ending her existence. In the Volturi’s ‘chambers’ it was like stepping back in to a time warp. She didn’t know if it was because of the festival, but all of the vampires were clothed in dark old fashioned clothes. She didn’t know how many of them there were, from what she could see there were only a handful in the hallway at the moment, besides her, Fred, Aro and of course, Alec.

Now that Jade was in a complete opposite atmosphere; surrounded by true monsters with no sense of hospitably, it seemed her mind couldn’t refrain from thinking of reasons why she shouldn’t die… again.

There was also the situation of Fred; poor, innocent Fred, who she had dragged here to his death. It wasn’t right. All this time she had spent in denial, hating herself, had led her to become what she feared most – a monster, a blood sucking monster. It was too late to go back to the Cullens, if they saw her now they would be so disappointed in what she had become. Apart from them Jade didn’t know anywhere else to go. She had completely messed things up with the last of her family, she couldn’t take another confrontation with her witch of her Grandmother or with her cousin Emma, who she couldn’t look in the eyes after killing her mother. No, Jade told herself firmly, she deserved this. But before she would allow her life to be taken again, she could still do at least one thing right by someone other than herself.

“Please, please even though I came here to… die, my friend did not. He hasn’t done anything wrong and was only trying to look out for me. He hasn’t even broken any of the rules, you can’t keep him here! He is of no use to you, he has no skills and is practically harmless. So just please, let him be.” Jade said as confidently as she could, when really inside she was trembling.

It worked though, Aro’s grin widened as he began to look at the newborn in a new light. Something she said had caught him by surprise. Within a millisecond of her little speech he had sped towards at her at vampire speed. Jade cowered down, thinking that he was going to hit her, but instead he only reached for her hand.

“Skills.. rules? Something tells me, novus natus, that you have been very poorly informed about the greatness of the creature that you are.” Jade was enraptured. After one and a half minutes he dropped her hand and the distant expression he had adopted when reading her memories. He looked like he had just had an orgasm and Jade could just picture the imaginary light bulb turning on above his head. He had made the connection, just as Alice had warned he would. With just the touch of her hand, he had learned everything there was to know about Jade. But instead of that scaring her she felt a strange feeling as if a great burden had been lifted from her shoulders. Whatever happened now, surely had to be out of her hands.

She stood as still as a statue as Aro placed one finger under her chin and tilted her head so that she was forced to meet him eye to eyre. “You are magnificent,” he said lowly so that only she and Alec standing behind her could hear him. She felt Alec tense as he came closer. There was an awkward pause in which Jade stood patiently awaiting her fate. She knew that her death had to be near because scenes of her life were really flashing before her lives. Not scenes of her life after her transformation, but scenes from her real life when she had been human.

“Hmm, what should we do with Jade stone and her very valuable friend, Fred?” Aro questioned pacing the hall. “I think that Miss Stone is under quite an illusion here. This is not the horrible place you think it to be, in fact you are our guests and deserve to be treated with the best of our good quality hospitality. Alec would you set up the dining room for our two guests please?” and just like that Jade let out a huge breath that she didn’t realise she had been holding since the minute they had been taken away by the Volturi. Fred was safe, that was the most important thing right? But at what cost? Alice had mentioned nothing about mercy and kindness.

“I think you and I are going to be great friends, Miss Stone,” he beamed linking her arm through his. After all we share mutual friends too, the Cullens I mean. In fact I would love to hear all about them. Yes, I think you are going to of great use to us Miss Stone. But first a meal, tell me Miss Stone how long has it been since you’ve had a good fill? You’re looking pretty poorly, while those Cullens are simply the greatest, they do tend to leave those guests pretty starved.” And just like that all of Jade’s breath was taken away again. This wasn’t what she was expecting. Why didn’t anybody listen to her when she said she wanted to die? Was she not speaking English? Did she need to repeat herself in Latin? The Volturi were the only ones who could solve her problem, and they now they were acting as if they wanted her to join them… The question was would she? That would mean turning her back on the Cullens for good. Did she even have a choice?

Before Jade could decide, her sense were suddenly overcome by the tantalising smell of fresh blood…
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Apologies for the long wait... but it was nice to see people wanting to read on (: It was harder to write about the Volturi for some reason but I hope it was still believable. Jade is going to have some pretty hard decisions coming up in the next chapter.. Whether she betrays the Cullens? Or what she will do when she is faced with the possibility of finding out who attacked her back in chapter 1 in the meadow... what do you think Jade will do?

Please tell me what you think, I value your opinions (: xx