[ Chapter Eleven—caught ]

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I stuck to the shadows, moving along swiftly. A desire to not be caught bubbled within as I continued to race through the streets. It was late... actually it was just very early morning, so early that the sun had not yet risen and would not rise for a few hours still.

I was scared for my family, based on what Alice and Edward were saying, it sounded like they were in deep shit. Hopefully, when I got back to Maine the others would know what to do.

The ground was made of cobblestone, something that was extremely strange to me as the ground in America was made mostly out of either concrete, asphalt, or plain dirt. At first, there were not many people around at all, but as I got closer to the bigger part of the city, more people started popping up.

It was late so the people awake were mostly night owls or drunks, but at least it was population. That meant I would be able to track down a cab soon and get to the airport.

"This would not make a bad TikTok..." I mumbled to myself as I ran, envisioning creating a video of myself running and saying a few amusing phrases such as "running for my life, let's go!" or even "racing away, duh duh, racing away!"

I almost reached into my pocket for my phone too, but soon decided that was possibly the worst idea in the history of ideas. And I have had some pretty bad ideas in the past.

I cannot even imagine what would happen if the Volturi somehow saw it, that right there would be the proof to my existence. Though, a great part of me wholeheartedly believed there was no way in hell the Volturi even knew what TikTok was let alone have any TikTok accounts.

What a sight that would be though. I mean, if the Volturi did have TikTok's what would they even be about? How many heads they ripped off in court that day.

I snickered at the thought, pausing at the edge of the building I was running by. I looked around, seeing another larger building with a deep shadow across the way, it was best I went there and ran in the shadows of that building.

Pushing off the wall of the building, I quickly started running toward the shadow of the other building. My backpack jangled loudly causing me to curse, but there was not really anything I could do about it.

It was rather quiet outside and I had things in the bag that I was not willing to part with.

As soon as I got within the protection of the other building, my ears were met with the sound of something running from miles away. It was light footsteps, far too light to be a human instantly causing me to believe it was a vampire. Barely a moment later, my strong sense of smell picked up on the general scent that only the walking dead creatures who called themselves vampires had.

Of course, every living creature has a unique scent, but all species had what I referred to as a base scent. A smell that was shared between all people of that species. In my opinion, humans actually tended to have a better smelling base scent than vampires, but that was just my opinion.

Inhaling deeper, I tried to smell who was coming my way. Unfortunately, rather than smell the familiar scent of either the Cullens or the Denalis, I was met with two unfamiliar scents.

"Fuck," I muttered with wide eyes, wasting no time in darting forward, pushing myself to run as quickly as I could through the cobblestone streets.

I was nowhere near as fast as a vampire which put me at a heavy disadvantage, there was no possibility of me outrunning them. My only chance was to fight them off and bite them as soon as my teeth got within range of their skin.

Jasper was going to begin teaching me some true self-defense and fighting techniques over the summer, but seeing as this whole situation happened he never actually got a chance to start. The real unfortunate part about it was that he was going to show me how to avoid my natural disadvantages against a vampire and bask in the advantages I had to them.

After minutes of running, the vampires obviously chasing me and slowly but surely gaining, I decided to stop. While my endurance was high, I was still breathing heavy when I finally stopped running.

Running would lead me nowhere, eventually, the vampires would have caught up to me and when they did I would have been too tired to fight against them. Therefore, stopping and saving the rest of my strength would allow me a better chance of fighting against them.

I reminded myself of the tips I was told when fighting against their kind. Don't let a vampire confuse me, never let them get their arms around me, and always be wary of any surprise gifts a vampire may have.

Kate, for example, had the power to electrocute anyone with a simple touch. Had I ever been against Kate in a fight, she would have the obvious advantage. Even with my toxic and deadly bite, should she could knock me unconscious by electrocuting me, my bite would then prove to be extremely unhelpful.

Breathing in deeply, I easily caught my breath slowly listening as the footsteps got closer. I estimated it was only a few seconds before they got to me.

Making sure to keep all my senses acute, I got into a ready stance. I knew it was nowhere near a full moon, but I still looked up anyway. My hopes were squashed when I saw the moon was not even half full.

While I may get sicker during the days nearing a full moon, on the nights nearing the full moon I was actually stronger. These vamps are lucky to have caught me on one of my weak days.

Listening to their footsteps, I counted how far they were. Closer, closer, closer...closer... and then suddenly... everything went blank.

And not like the I got knocked out sort of blank, but rather a kind of blank that I had never felt before. Because all in an instant, my senses were gone.

Hearing, sight, smell, touch, hell I was not even able to taste anything. It was as though I was floating in a deep abyss of my own mind. At first, I was scared, but as time passed the fear turned into peace.

It was sort of nice in a way, it was a feeling that was unable to be described. I literally felt nothing, the only connection I had was to my own mind, the world was cut gone.

Was I dead? Was this to be the rest of eternity?

Honestly, not the worst outcome, not like I ended up in hell after all.

Staying within my own mind got me to thinking. About the Cullens—I hoped they were safe—about Drake, about my parents, about a lot of things.

Emotions are weird. You can feel incredibly happy, but a small part of you could also feel an immense amount of sadness. Or maybe that was just me. The only way I could picture my own emotions was to compare them to a pie chart, as odd as it sounded (especially seeing as math was never my thing).

You see, 75% is content and happy, but then you have the 15% that makes up sadness, and finally, the 10% that makes up guilt. I knew exactly why 25% of my being was sad and guilty, but it was simply something that I could not even bring myself to think about.

I was not exactly sure how much time had passed, it could have been minutes, days, months, it all was a blur of an inky black abyss. Something akin to floating in your own astral-projected field.

However, in seconds, the peace and thoughtfulness that came with being trapped within my own soul was ripped away. Once again, I was a victim to the cold harshness of reality.

Fuck you, God.

Gasping for air, my eyes snapped open and I was left coughing. I was not sure where I was at first, everything was a blur and my senses were still catching up to me from being cut off for so long. But slowly, my vision focused and my sense of smell and hearing bounced back in full force.

"Aro, please, she's my cousin, you need to understand..." Bella was talking, but her words still sounded slightly fuzzy.

"A werewolf?"

Werewolf. Werewolf. Werewolf.

Oh yeah, I was the werewolf they were talking about. Also, a werewolf who was currently lying on a very cold and very hard ground.

Everything snapped into place and without warning, I (quite literally) jumped off of the ground and landed on my feet. Marble ground, expensive statues, long windows with sunlight streaming through.

I was vaguely aware of the many vampires who got defensive around me looking ready to attack. However, my attention was more on the many long paintings adorning the walls of the grand room. The second thing to catch my attention was the three huge thrones.

And finally, the third was the blood-red eyes all drilling into me. I liked the way golden vampire eyes looked much more.

However, these vampires that surrounded reminded me nothing of Patrick-John. Patrick-John looked far wilder than any of these vampires, these vampires surrounding me were all clothed in dark expensive-looking suits and heavy cloaks.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see an angelic-looking vampire who appeared to be physically younger than any other person in the room. He was probably early into sixteen when he was turned, and yet it did not take away from his beauty in the slightest. If anything, it made him all the more mystifying.

This teen was holding out his pale hands, his dark hair covering half of his face as he glared heatedly at me through bright red irises. I quirked a brow noticing some sort of dark mist beginning to encase his hands.

Apparently, I was not the only one to notice it as barely a second later I felt the protection of Bella's shield cover me alike to blanket and wrap itself securely against my being.

The Cullen's along with the Denali's were on the other side of the apparent throne room. All of them looked ready for battle except for Carlisle who stood calmly simply holding his hands up as a sign of peace.

The second vampire who was not a Cullen or Denali that I took notice of was standing just in front of the center throne, his eyes blazing. His hair was dark and long, stopping just at his shoulder blades. I did not need to look twice to recognize him as the royal, Aro Volturi, one of the three leaders of the essential vampire monarchy.

Also known as one of the crusty ass vampires I currently hated.

"Aro, please..." Carlisle started calmly only for Aro's nostrils to flare.

"You have broken the law once again, Carlisle, and this time undoubtedly has to be the worst of all. To associate yourself with a werewolf..." Aro stated as though he could not believe his own words, his milky red eyes wide in some sort of overdramatic shock, "...no matter, this will be dealt with immediately. Felix, if you would please be so kind as to get my brothers and Jane." Aro looked to a hulk of a vampire that was even bigger than Emmett.

I still thought Emmett could take this Felix head on though. Felix left quickly, ghosting out of the room quickly.

I tilted my head noticing that Aro barely acknowledged me even though he was speaking of me. It was almost as though he did not recognize me as an actual person.

"Southern vampire," my eyebrows raised when Aro suddenly turned to Jasper with a glare, "your meddling with emotions will get you nowhere! No matter how I feel, the penalty for such an atrocious act of this is death." Aro stated, a small smile overtaking his features.

"It would be simply unfair of me to allow this to go unpunished."

Edward pointed an accusing finger at the raven-haired vampire, "unfair unless it benefits you somehow..."

"Edward," Carlisle started, Aro watching the interaction.

It was odd, Aro's voice and actions were light, airy, and calm, even his facial expressions remained peaceful. However, it was obvious Aro was angry, he just did a great job at keeping a calm facade.

"Listen, gramps," if time could stop, then everything would have frozen at that moment.

It was comical the way the Cullen's all took a deep intake of breath, all the Volturi guard looking to me wide-eyed (even emo vamp boy behind me), and the way Aro turned his head to me in an eerily slow manner looking as though he could not believe what came out of my mouth.

"None of us are Italian, you have like no jurisdiction over us. Honestly, I was born in Arizona..." Aro was staring at me as though I had grown a second head, his expression pondering.

"And what even happened, guys?" As I spoke the next part, I looked to the Cullens.

Bella was the one to answer. "We missed the fact that Demetri was also around and tracking us..." she sighed as Aro clapped his hands.

"A lesson for you all, you cannot deceive the Volturi, no matter how strong your shield may be, Isabella..." Aro hissed my cousin's name in a creepy manner causing me to crinkle my nose.

"Eww, dude, don't say my cousin's name like that," I scoffed earning a smile from Edward and an unamused scowl from Aro himself.

Clasping his hands, Aro turned back to me. "Jaclyn, is it?" He asked in a rhetorical manner, not intending for me to answer but I did anyway.

"No, I don't have a name..." I trailed in a completely serious tone causing Aro to pause and gave me a long look while slowly blinking.

I blinked back.

The vampire king cleared his throat before continuing, "if you wish to stay alive for any longer length of time—albeit even if it is short—I would suggest keeping silent." He said it as though he were simply giving me a tip, even adding a charming smile to the end.

"Would you be the one killing me?" I questioned offhandedly, causing Aro to actually look confused.

The male vampire tilted his head while Edward shook his head in the background and Bella simply looked panicked along with the others.

Straightening himself, Aro nodded, "yes, I would do the honors—"

"In that case," I cut the raven-haired vampire off, casting a look at the guard around me.

Surprisingly, there were not that many. Felix had left, the younger teen was still a few feet behind me, another vampire with sandy hair stood by the door along with another dark-skinned vampire adorning dreadlocks.

The guy with dreadlocks looked pretty wicked, way cooler than the other pasty vamps in the room.

"...please do come over and try, I dare you," I smiled, making sure to allow my teeth to lengthen while doing it, putting my incisors on full display, "see what happens," the last part of my words sounded fucking awesome as my voice grew deeper and much more animalistic.

It was terrifying, and I think it might have actually shaken Aro for he took a slight step back, frowning at my display of wildness. However, I was surprised when grandpa vampire only shook his head, turning to the Cullens as though he pitied them.

"And this..." he trailed off with a sigh, "is why we do not befriend werewolves, simple animals they are..."

"Yo, fuck you asshat!" I growled earning a hiss from the boy behind me which I immediately returned with an even louder growl causing the other to Volturi guards to prepare for a fight that was no doubt about to break out.

I felt the strength of Bella's shield double and the misty vampire seemed to know this as he cast a look toward Aro. It was a silent signal as though to say whatever freaky power he had would not work with Bella's shield activated.

It was with that thought that my mind suddenly reeled. The witch twins, Alec and Jane.

Carlisle told me about them earlier in the summer. Alec had the power to deprive people of all their senses while Jane was the opposite causing a person to feel unbearable pain. However, hilariously enough, while they may have been some of the most powerful vampires in the world, Bella was able to block out their gifts.

Aro narrowed his bloody eyes, taking a slight step forward, but he was cut off by the doors dramatically flinging open. I turned around just like everyone else.

The first one to walk in was a girl with similar facial features to Alec, but she was much shorter and her hair was much blonder compared to her dark-haired brother. Her blood-red eyes zeroed in on me then they darted to her brother whose mist was splayed around his fingers and finally to Bella who smirked at the tiny blonde.

The girl—who was no doubt terror twin Jane—snarled at Bella.

My attention left Jane though and was thrown toward the two figures who followed after her looking as though neither of their feet were touching the ground with how they glided across the room. The first was who I recognized as Marcus by the bored expression on his face.

His hair was a lighter brown than Aro's but their length was around the same. I immediately looked away from Marcus, my eyes resting on the blond next to him.

I froze.

Beauty in its finest, right down to every detail. His face looked as though it was hand-carved by God himself, his hair reminding me of the powdery white snow that would fall up at university during the barren winters.

However, the scowl worn on his face was like nothing I had ever seen before, this man looked angry.

Caius Volturi.

He froze as well, his blazing eyes boring into my own. It was like the entire world was held all within his blood irises. I was not aware of what was happening, it was like everything just sank away and all I was able to do was stare.

It was something I had never felt before, a feeling of something warming inside my body and a tightening of my heart. I could practically feel my eyes changing from brown to blue, my pupils dilating and adrenaline beginning to pump.

Caius clenched his hands into fists, pure shock radiating through his gaze as we stared.

It was simple, one word fell off of the beautiful blond's tongue that made me come back to reality and had my world crashing around me. However, it also was the thing that saved not only my own life but the rest of my family's.

"Mate?" He said it not in a sure tone but rather as a question, his eyes narrowed and eyebrows furrowed.