THE GRASS ALWAYS APPEARS GREENER ON THE OTHER SIDE. For Chrissy, the open landscape of Volterra feels like this saying applies, and her gut instict was to run the second she stepped foot in the place. Perhaps it was the fact that River hadn't been talking too much with her, something that was both uncommon and strange, or maybe the unrelenting stares from too many in the Clocktower-Castle hybrid gave her the feeling of uncanny valley.

The young woman despised new surroundings that felt eerie, she'd learned her lesson that curiosity didn't kill the cat, it killed humans. Volterra was a trip of complete doom, and the blonde haired freak who openly whispered nasty things about her in Italian under his breath did not help the growing tensions.

Right now Chrissy was in the gardens, on the grassy floor of them, deciding whether or not it would be immoral to pick the flowers that were comfortable growing beneath the well tended soil.

It would piss off people if she did pick them, fuck, she might get cursed right back into her bedroom by whoever was responsible for the things, but it was the principle of figuring out what exactly was wrong with the place that compelled her to desire such an unholy thing. What laid under the flowerbed? Could it be the dead bodies of previous secretaries of the three men in charge? Chrissy desperately wanted to know, for some reason, and she didn't exactly have the best track record for keeping her curiosities about odd men to herself.

She didn't get the chance to pick the petunias or the daisies, one of her least favorite men in the whole entire world had come up behind her, staring into her very soul and scowling at it's existence. Shame on her for existing, his face read, shame on you for being here when I wanted to be.

"Are you going to stare or scream at me, little man," Chrissy teased as she rolled around, getting her outfit dirty as if to prove a point to him. To prove that he was right, she was below him, dirty and common and utterly unworthy of being in his presence. "Or is your face going to stick like that?"

"At least I am not mooching off my friend's boss," Caius retorted, his face going horribly sour and twisted.

Chrissy Destarri did not like Caius Volturi. The feeling was mutual between the two. From the first time they met, from the time that Chrissy had come into the castle with him standing in the corner pouting like an embarassing child, she did not like him. The young woman couldn't say if it was his face that she hated the most, or his overly blonde hair that had to be natural.

Yet she loved it when she had the chance to pick a fight with him. He wa san annoying, pompous, self-rightous asshole, and she knew exactly which spots angered him the most. It angered any man with any slight interest in a woman they shouldn't be interested in.

See, Chrissy knew men like him. She felt it was in her friend's best interest to keep an eye on the men that undoubtably found interest in her. River's judgement was beyond clouded in her eyes: she'd been the one to fall for their shared abuser first while ignoring every red flag about him. Chrissy felt the gaze of men, and she wasn't willing to let River fall pray to one ever again.

She would make herself the villian, get involved when she shouldn't, because she hated seeing River cry, seeing her beaten and bruised while singing a man's praises in front of Carlisle. At least he understands where I'm coming from, Chrissy thought, Carlisle knowing these men doesn't help me at all, but he'd get it. He won't be too mad if I rile him up a bit more.

"Don't you have a wife, Caius?" Chrissy sassed as she ceased her rolling in the dirt. "Wouldn't she be upset if she knew what you were doing with her?"

Caius took in a deep breath. "You assume so much yet know so little."

"I see how you look at her. Like you want to devour her. I've met men like you before. I see right through you. You stay away from her heart. She doesn't need a monster lusting after her."

"I've been nothing but loyal to my wife," Caius murmured.

"This isn't a movie, Caius, and she isn't a fucking actress. She's your fucking secretary," Chrissy reminded him as she shook her head. "You're an asshole who looks at her like she's a piece of meat. You have a wife to tend to already. Believe it or not, checking out your secretary is predetory behavior."

"I am not pursuing a sexual relationship with my secretary!" Caius began to raise his voice as he loomed over her. "To assume anything you have is preposterous and is rooted in an unrealistic view of me and my way of being! I am an honest man, I would not do wrong by anyone who did not deserve it! Only the lowly point their finger and judge first, Ms. Destarri, and you are the lowliest of them all for accusing me of something as rediculous as this with no evidence other than your own personal feelings about me!

"I do not go into your home, live their rent free for weeks, and then accuse them of adulterous actions. Even if you were right and I were whoring myself out to every young woman who lived within these castles walls, it would be none of your buisiness. Get your nose out of places where it doesn't belong, lest you lose more than just your credibility."

---

FOR JUST OVER FORTY-EIGHT HOURS CHRISSY HAD BEEN WONDERING WHAT SHE WOULD SAY TO HER FRIEND AND FORMER FELLOW HOSTAGE.

The idea that she was right about something being wrong with the place loomed deep in her chest as more and more people around the castle began to stare at her. She felt like an animal being followed, even when safe in her rooms. The marble flooring looked clear, but over the past two nights she'd had nightmares of blood stained floors and black capes.

It wasn't uncommon for Chrissy to dream, or rather, have vivid nightmares about blood. By the morning, her heart would be going a thousand miles and hour, her body drenched in a cold sweat that darkened her pale pink sheets. At home, she'd have confided in Carlisle about these nightmares, maybe even have told Jasper if he was with his father at the office.

Now that Chrissy could only find solace in an unusally empty libarary, she began searching for anything to help her stay awake and find history on the place she was staying in for the forseeable future.

Chrissy opened up about twenty books before finally finding a few in English. Topics relating to the supernatural, three on the history of vampire lore and a few that depicted werewolves, or as these texts called them, Children of the Moon.

It was all quite medieval, the depictions less scientific and deeply rooted in fears of local tribes, but in one three all too familiar names stood out.

Why was there a section on three men with the names Aro, Caius, and Marcus?

It was quite common to name people after important historical and familiar figures, but the supernatural connection between the names and the three bosses her friend had found herself working for while staying at the Clocktower was eerie. Chrissy had never been interested in the history of vampires, werewolves were more interesting to her.

Chrissy couldn't help but read further, crawling past the many depictions of the different tribes and locations of these Children of the Moon. Too many names of old places in Wallachia and Arabia. But beyond that was a section on these men beyond their seemingly endless battles.

"And most notable were the three kings of the Volturi Coven. Three Roman vampires bonded by the ties of the soul, the kings set out to Volterra, Italy, to start their government away from the prying eyes of the church, which had abandoned the reigon during the fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century AD.

"By 700 AD, the Volturi Coven had gained ultimate power over the remaining vampire population reaching to the end of the world. Caius, a brutal but effective leader, is recorded to having brought the greater Christiandom and South African Vampire populations to prosperity after his destruction of the Children of the Moon that ravaged human and vampire populations and risked his fellow kings' efforts to remain hidden from humanity.

"Despite the Coven's wars with the Wallachian vampires during the first, fifth, and eleventh century AD, war was ended in 1024 AD with the marriage of Caius and Athenodora, two vampires on opposing sides. This marriage of vampires keeps the peace between Wallachian and Volterran Coven.

"Soon after this marriage did the fight between Vampires and Children of the Moon end. With the most powerful Covens united under a sacred goal of purifying their world of, in their eyes, uncontrollable beasts, the Children of the Moon were extinct by the year 1422 AD. Not another has been seen since.

"The three kings of the Volturi currently reside in Volterra in a large, Roman style clocktower, where they run the vampire world where the sun cannot touch them. The dark-haired and just Aro, the fair-haired and fierce Caius, and the curly-haired and somber Marcus all decide what our world will look like coming into this next century.

"'This is a history one should understand, and one should learn, should one come to Volterra. Aro is a pleasure to be around, and I would never wish him any harm,' said Carlisle Cullen during his stay in Volterra in 1718-"

Chrissy's face paled as she sprinted from the library.

---

Well.... that complicates things....