When the future becomes the present it goes from Alice, but it stays with Edward. Edward whose step doesn't hitch, but the entirety of his ability to process does when over a half dozen other launch themselves at Carlisle.

A pile or red, with flashes of gold, the surmounting heave of hate and satisfaction that finally, even when it's met only with the mad desperation for freedom. The feral edge of each, so much more monster and even victim than men. The obvious imbalance to the fight.




Then it's only Alice's words that draws him back.

Back from the brink of a flicker in her mind.

Where he'd almost torn off the other way.

He doesn't look at her, or regret it.



Edward shook his head to Jasper's question.

Not yet at least. He moved them through the space, relying far more on Jasper's attempts at calm and Alice's flickers of the hallways, the room, before they reached it, than he ever let on with his specific, determined, silent gait.

Only a few more walkways now. Things were piecing together.