Return to Volterra.

[ofthefamily]

The escorting from his unusual cell back through the crowd of people was bizarre enough.

It made returning to the door Carlisle had entered to arrive here, opening it, seeing the utter quiet and dank of familiar tunnels, jarring.

He walks through the door expecting another cell.






Carlisle is standing in the hallway. Outside of his former cell door.

He starts to run.

Comments

[themidnightson]

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.

[betagainstme]

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.

[ofthefamily]

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 --

[themidnightson]

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.

[ofthefamily]

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.

[keptherwaiting.livejournal.com]

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.

[betagainstme]

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.

[themidnightson]

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.