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Aro steps closely to Carlisle now, to the surprise of the audience gathered. He appeared to all watching as a friend leaning in to speak in confidence. They could all hear every word regardless.

"You stayed with us for near a century, Carlisle. We would have been able to come to an agreement if you had simply spoken plainly with me. Now I have to deal with what you have done here."

To interrupt a judgement is near tantamount to calling one upon yourself, but a younger guardsman risks it.

"Another is dead!" an unseen voice shouts from the hallway beyond the columned room. "Il stregone has killed two!"

The entire group seems to raise in a communal hiss when they look to see who is missing amongst their ranks. It is a relative nobody - a guard leaving a rear cloak room.

The death is an excuse just as much as it is considered a crime.

"I did not do this, Aro!" Carlisle returns over the noise in the room. "See for yourself -- "

He holds out his forearm, prepared for Aro's touch and the view into his past that it would bring the older vampire.

Aro shakes his head no and Carlisle pulls his arm back slowly to wait.

"Ah, but Carlisle," Aro starts, half-smile again.

"You enjoyed the one you did kill, didn't you."

He sees Carlisle's eyes flash upward, staving off a reply. It is all the confirmation Aro needs.

Broadcasting his voice around the room to bounce back from the high ceilings: "Leave, Carlisle. Just leave."

"We can't let him leave!" a guardsman cries out, to be immediately shushed by his kinsmen.

Carlisle wastes no time in pushing away through the crowd to flee and everyone is staring at the dais. Aro calmly turns back to his seat, bored again.

"Follow."

The deep, dangerous growl traps in his chest, sounding even when he won't let his lips part, while Aro plays his part. In no other case would one body matter, either as much or at all. But he see's the final part coming only seconds before it does.

Aro is masterful player; and he acts his part even to himself.

Edward only has enough time to register the flash of blonde hair vanish by them, his siblings own reactions, and then the smaller number of minds that will take part in the chase.

It comes without preamble. He's faster than any of them.

"Stall them. I'll see the way to the gate isn't blocked."

He does wait for either to agree. He runs.

He knows what both decisions mean.

Edited 2009-10-18 22:42 (UTC)

Wait, what.

Edwar -

But Edward is already gone and Jasper growls under his breath. So much for staying together.

He glances at the quickly departing crowd and does the only thing he can think of, his time with Maria paying off yet again. Confusion hits the vampire next to him like a ton of bricks, the urge to give chase dissipating rapidly from her and then another beside her and the next.

He's not sure how much time it'll give Edward; it usually worked better when he followed it by ripping his enemies' heads off before they could recover.

Alice stands rooted to the spot for a moment before moving to grab her husband by the arm. "Come on, we need to get out of here, we can't lose him."

Her eyes are vacant as she says it, searching for a new outcome. Everything is still so bad.

Edward runs faster than any of his family members without the fact he's feeding twice as often right now still, out races the pack barely started, weaving through hallways. Half depending on the maps in the minds behind him, half on his own path unraveling to Alice about the decisions he will make based on each one he does.

He's halfway to the gate, in a parallel hall when he passes the Carlisle, passes and keeps going. He has to take down one at the gate. One. Not a name, not a face, not a voice or a thought. The only name, the only face that matters is halfway up one of the adjoining hallways and gaining on him for the time it takes to do the act.

But when he looks up -- looks up without once without ever looking at the red cloaked body, only having turned to throw the gate open wide -- he's staring at four tunnels to leave by. Uncertain which one he entered from.

All he can do is think her name. He needs her to tell him.

What to do now. When he chooses one at random.

When he's running into the maelstrom now.

The maelstrom in red.

The guard has followed Carlisle, followed him down any tunnel he could think of to crawl through, to hide in, to scurry away like the vermin upon which he feeds.

It takes time for everyone to run from the main hall, the Three staying behind in their thrones.

The only thing for every other soul in the room to do is give chase and fight.

And Carlisle can hear all of them as he runs, too, panting harshly with exertion but without fear.
Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
They kill him or they don't; Carlisle will escape or he will not. Nothing to fear anymore.
ma liberaci dal male

He is close to the tunnels and accelerates, hoping to twist and turn enough to lose them, give himself time to flee --

It doesn't work. Carlisle gets turned around, somehow, lost in his head and former home and current prison. He ran towards the guard.

Jasper's running with Alice in tow, taking turns and twists whenever Alice tells him to. All he sees are blurs of red and he relies completely on her to tell him where to go.

They're trying to find Edward, they're trying to get to Carlisle, and he will snap the head off of any vampire that tries to gets in their way.

Who are you? one of the cloaked figures thinks to himself, eyeing the pair running hand-in-hand.

They run to flee. Not fight. Not defend.

He reaches for the shoulder of the shorter figure, knocking the hood back to reveal spiky black hair. He has to stop them.

Alice whirls as the vampire grabs her shoulder, revealing her features to everyone in the room. She hesitates only for a second as a vision took her--edward carlisle maelstrom red no no no--edward you're going to run right into him--

She comes back to reality just as the vampire -- huge and looming compared to her -- lunges for her and she spins, ducking down under his blow. She's no good when there's so much at stake, she can predict this one's every move, but she's got to keep an eye on Edward and Carlisle, not...play fighting right now.

"Jasper--"

Jasper is already reacting. He spins around, a harsh growl at the hands on his wife, and slams the vampire through the nearest wall, into the room beyond. They both land, a tangle of arms and legs and snarls, on a much-too-expensive-rug.

He growls for Alice to "Go."

Run, hide, find Edward. Just go.

Edward's see's it when she see's it. The cry of her distress at the vision slices through him with the weight of Jasper's panic laced on each other as one happening. Alice -- Alice, now -- is in danger and Carlisle is right up ahead of him now, going the wrong way.

There's nowhere for him to run. He could turn but he'd be spotted before he could hit the end of the long hallway in front of the gate to take a new path. He has to, knows he can, trust Jasper to literally be taken down before anyone will be allowed to touch Alice.

Even when she can defend herself. He doesn't doubt that -- doesn't know what to do, stopped in the middle of the hallway where he can distinguish, not Carlisle's thoughts from the sounds of melee behind him, but the closeness of his steps.

There's only one corner left.

Edward forced himself to look at the ground.

Red hood and cape.

It's over.

One figure staring downward and others coming up behind him.

Carlisle stands to fight all comers, without the time or inclination to wonder at the solitary figure that refuses to regard him with hate.

They aren't here yet, Edward wants to say to Carlisle's shoes. You have time. Run. Fucking run. But he can't speak. If he does, it'll give him away instantly.

But seconds bring them all that much closer. The haze of red, freed from constraint to enact jealous hatred with one word. He can make out thoughts even in the animalistic instincts taking over for this hunt.

He might not be able to speak but it doesn't leave him powerless. Edward snarled, low and fierce, when he sprung toward the first bunch rounding on them only half a minute later. The first ones don't stand chance of dodging.

She runs.

It pains her to do so, to leave her husband fighting a fight she should have done on her own, but she knows (sees) he'll be fine. Edward, however...

She dodges through people as she gets closer and closer to the crux. Mid-run, she pulls her hood back up, to cover her face, her eyes that don't match theirs.

Alice slides into the room behind the group of vampires in front of Edward and Carlisle and she knows what Edward aims to do and she can't tell which future is more unbearable as they spin out--no carlisle, no future, no edward, no family, either way it all ends horribly--and her mental scream of her brother's name is shrill, even in her own head.

just get him out of here she shakes, knowing that if Edward leaves with Carlisle...then it's up to Alice to stop the vampires from following.

And then it's Carlisle, staring at faces he's known for nearly a century.

Looking at him with Traitor Heathen Worthless Soon Dead across their faces.

So Carlisle runs toward them, hunger and vestiges of adrenaline and I didn't deserve this --

Edward's teeth are already sunk, and the rip of flesh beneath them and his fingers has already given with a sickening sound like steel being torn as a neck sheers from shoulders when Alice's scream of his name rips into him.

He sees it, sees through her eyes, all their eyes, even as for a second, he vanishes from her -- from the future where he should be, even before the body has enough time to fall. Gone and back. The smallest blink but gone.

No part of him wants to stop. Why should he? With what they've done? She yells an order, panic and steel, and somewhere in his brain, something saner reminds him she's there to keep it all straight, to keep him straight.

He has to get Carlisle out of here.

That's why they are here.

The body falls as Edward ducked into a crouch, clinging to her directions and to the plea behind him coming closer. He turns, needing only a millisecond to judge the proper direction before, kicking Carlisle's knees out from under him.

Then he's springing up with the same momentum, one hand catching half against Carlisle shoulder, and half under it from behind, to spin him the opposite direction without letting him drop and drag him that way until his feet find their own purchase.

Out. Out. Out. He's focused on that word, or he'll turn back to what's calling louder in form of defense.

That's who he is. It has to be. Someone is helping him.

Carlisle gasps with the weight of it more so than getting his legs kicked out by the cloaked figure, hood back against shoulders to hair that would probably be orange-red in the sunlight.

There's no time.

Carlisle pauses and rights himself, smiling to a man who isn't even looking at him when he thinks Goodbye, Gerard before he runs.

Away from the guard.

Edited 2009-11-08 16:04 (UTC)

And Jasper is running toward them. More specifically, toward Edward and his wife, ducking under reaching arms and sidestepping anyone that tries to stop him. His shoulders and neck ache from a few new bites, but the pain is nothing compared to the relief he feels at seeing Carlisle running out and away from the fray.

He grabs Alice around the waist then and pulls her out from the middle of the fight, despite feeling that every nerve of her body is still in it, shielding her from the chaos.

Edward. We need to go. Now.

Before this gets any worse.

They run. They run from the guard as fast as they can, and though Alice feels sick the entire time, nothing else happens. No, their futures are still there.

She's dizzy with visions of the future--their future--secure in her head, and as soon as they get far enough away, she wrenches herself away from her husband, dry heaving with tearless sobs.

They did it. They did it.

"We need--" she can't communicate the words to tell them that there's a door to Milliways in the back of an alley. That they can go home. She trusts that Edward will communicate this to Jasper.

For now, she's just going to slump against a wall.

Edward does just that, with little more than a sharp look (sharp for the situation and all the people still crowded up his head) and a motion of his hands.

"There's a way out."

Beat. "Follow me."

To the tune of a conflicted, but concerned and pointed sort of message in his tone of take care of Alice, I've got point.

The door isn't too hard to find, neither is avoiding them once they know they've done what they came to do. Edward can keep them from running into people when he hears them, and Alice's visions keep the both of them appraised of people changing directions or searching.

But no one will find them.

And no one hears the door close after them.

Edited 2009-11-25 14:29 (UTC)

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