I Counted My Blessings, Now I'll Count This Curse

To refresh your mind:
“Sapphire? Where are you?” Alice’s voice shot through the phone like a bullet, piercing my ears. “Alice, chill, I’m at Jake’s house. What’s up?”

“Can you come home like, now? We have something very important to discuss, bring Jacob with you please.” She tried to hide her worries, but I could hear them through the calm mask of her voice. “We’ll be there as soon as possible.” With that, I hung up the phone.

“What’s wrong?” Jake asked, seeing the panic in my face.

“That was Alice, she wants both of us at the house as soon as possible. She sounded worried Jake.” Jake’s face turned serious immediately. “You start running, I’ll be behind you as soon as I can.” I nodded, smiled at Billy weakly and took off.

The woods smelled fresh and green, but it couldn’t lighten my mood right now. Why would Alice be worried? What was going on?

Jake caught up with me right before I reached the house. I waited for him to turn back into human form and then we made our way into the house.

The whole family was waiting in the living room, their expressions either angry or worried.
“What’s going on?” I asked no one in particular, scanning their faces.

Carlisle was the one who gave me the answer.

“The Volturi are coming over tomorrow.”

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I stood there in the middle of the living room with the worried stare of all the Cullens focused on me. The word Volturi was buried somewhere deep down in my mind, but I had no idea why it sounded familiar to me at all. I dug deep in my memories, but I wasn’t able to find more, so I thought it would be better if I asked someone to clarify things for me.

“Uhm, what exactly is the Volturi?”

Alice mouth fell upon in surprise, and Bella widened her eyes.
I felt like a pretty stupid vampire right then.

Without wanting to see it, I was pulled into Bella’s livid memories about this Volturi thing.

I saw 3 ancient but still beautiful vampires sitting in chairs that looked like thrones. The vampire in the middle had long, black hair and a friendly smile. The vampire sitting on his left looked utterly bored and his hair was a dark shade of brown. The vampire on his right had snow white hair which surrounded his sour looking face. Their eyes were all blood red.

Before I was able to take a better look at the 3 ancient vampires, I was pulled into another scene. A lot of hooded figures, standing in what looked like a formation. I saw an angelic looking girl, who had a rigid look on her delicate face. I searched for what or who she was looking at, and it didn’t take me long to see that it was Bella.

I looked back at the hooded figures, and next to the girl I saw a boy.
A pretty gorgeous guy, that is
Something about him made me want to walk over and touch him, talk to him, feel him.
Wait, what? Feel? Touch?
I felt that I was being pulled out of the memory, but right before I lost sight of the boy, he looked over at me. Our eyes crossed, but before I knew it I was back in the Cullen’s living room.

“Sapphire? Are you okay? What happened?” Jacob was next to me, asking questions faster than a speed train.
“Jacob, calm down. I think she needs some time to come back.” Carlisle stated and I saw him walking over to me. I felt that I was being picked up and put on the couch. Great, so during my little trip I had fallen to the ground. Really nice, Jacob was probably worried to death.

I took a few deep breaths and my mind stopped spinning. When I fully recovered, I looked over at Carlisle.

“Tell me everything there is to know about these Volturi people”

Carlisle nodded and started his story.

“The Volturi are the closest thing we have to loyalty. They are the ones who punish those who break the law. The Volturi consists of the 3 leaders, Aro, Caius and Marcus. They have a guard which consists mostly of vampires with special powers, like you. A few vampires in the guard are Jane and Alec, Demetri, Chelsea and Renate. Jane can cause someone to believe that they are feeling excruciating pain, making it easy for the Volturi to attack and destroy their enemies. Alec's powers are also useful when attacking the enemy. He can cut off all senses making the prey unable to see, hear or feel anything, enabling the vampires to kill them without a fight.”

When Carlisle spoke the name Alec, a weird feeling spread through my stomach. I quickly ‘borrowed’ Bella’s power to keep Edward from reading my thoughts and Jasper from feeling my mood change.
Alec, could he be the guy from the memory that had seemed so strangely familiar to me?

“Demetri is a tracker. He can track a person down once he has a tenor of their mind, and he is known as the best tracker in the vampire world. Chelsea can manipulate the ties of relationships. This is useful when The Volturi want a specific vampire to join them. Another thing that the Volture find useful is how she can loosen the binds of their enemies, turning them against each other. Renate is Aro’s personal shield. She can do what Bella does, and she guards Aro all the time.”

“Aro and Marcus have got special gifts too. Aro can hear every single thought a person or vampire has ever thought in its entire life just by touching their hand and Marcus can sense relationships.”

He was silent for a moment, as if he was pondering over how to say what he was thinking.

“They are all not very fond of the idea that we bond with the werewolves, especially Caius. I am almost a 100 percent sure that the reason they are coming here is you.”

I gasped lightly, but I could see why Carlisle thought this.

“You think that they are coming here for me because of my special power and my bond with Jacob, right?”

Carlisle nodded.

“And they are dangerous, am I correct?”

Carlisle nodded again. “I think that they will do everything in their power to talk you into joining their guard. Your power is very special and I’m sure Aro would love to learn more about you and your bond with Jacob.”

I put my head in my hands, thinking it all through. It was silent for a few moments, everyone was just thinking about how to handle the situation.

“Well, we’ll just do what we did next time, right Carlisle? We beat the Volturi before, and with Sapphire we can definitely beat them again, I’m sure of it!” Jacob was the first one to speak.

So that’s what the memory had shown me, a fight between the Volturi and the Cullens and the werewolves. But how could they have won? The Volturi had seemed like a big group of people.

“But how did you win that fight? The Volturi were with a great amount of people, weren’t they?” I asked.

Before Carlisle gave me an answer, Edward pointed out something.
“How do you know with how many persons the Volturi came here?”

I closed my eyes and I saw the scene again. The Cullens, the werewolves, the Volturi, Alec.

“I saw them in Bella’s memories. She was thinking about it when I asked what the Volturi was, and I was somehow sucked into her memories.”

“Wow.” Emmett said as everyone stared at me.

Carlisle came to his senses before everybody else, and he answered my question before asking me more about my little trip. “We had the support of vampires, friends and allies that were willing to fight the Volturi with us. But the person who really won the fight for us was Bella, she made sure no one was harmed with her power.”

I nodded. “And when they are coming tomorrow,”
I focused on Alice before continuing, “will they all come, just like with the fight?”

Alice shook her head. “Aro, Marcus and Caius will come, and they will bring Jane, Alec, Demetri, Chelsea and Felix with them.”

“Then we can definitely handle them, I will alarm the rest of the pack and then we will…” Jacob was already getting up to hurry back to La Push, but I knew that I didn’t want to bring him, the Cullens or anyone else in danger.

“No Jake. If the Volturi want to talk to me, they can. I don’t think that it is a good idea to attack them and bring people in danger when it’s not necessary. I will answer all of their questions and give them information, but I think that it’s pretty clear that I will not be leaving you or my new family behind to join their guard, hell no. Understood?” I spoke loud and clear, trying not to show my confusion and fear.

Jacob looked at me, really looked at me. For a moment, I was worried that he could look into my soul, my memories, and see what had happened when I was in Bella’s memory. Then, he nodded.

“I guess that that might be a better idea, if that’s how you want it.”

I walked over and hugged him.

Then I turned back to my family.
“Let’s not panic, I can handle this, I really can. If they ask me to join their guard, I will tell them that I’m perfectly happy here in Forks. I’m not going to leave you guys and the last thing I’d want to do is bring you in danger, it’ll be fine.”

Everyone nodded, although they still seemed worried, but the pairs all left the room, except for Esme and Carlisle.

Carlisle appeared to be in deep thought, and Esme sat next to him, touching his arm gently.

I pressed my body against Jacob’s again, and he wrapped his arms around me tightly.
“They will not take me away from you, I promise”

I had no idea how wrong I was at that point.