It wasn't that Roman wanted to skip school on Monday, she just did. She hadn't gotten any sleep the night before and could hardly stomach more than a few bites of banana, and Sue said to just take the day.

So she did. She hung around Emily's talking to the girl quietly about all the plans that she had told Seth about. It was a lot to ask for, her understanding, but by the time the boys were out of school, she felt at least a little better.

Graduation was so close and it was important that she get that weight, the burden, off her chest before it was too late.

Emily would forgive her, in the end, would still speak to her even if from a distance, and she would be able to persuade Sam. And the Clearwaters were family, despite everything, so things would just work out in the end -- she was sure.

They told her as much, too, the small little family over dinner, and as mas as Leah might have been, she promised that they could be friends even when she was a stinking leech... which was quite nice considering.

It definitely lightened the mood.

Roman was eager to get to school for the first one in forever. Her mind clear in a way it hadn't been for a long time with not a thing bothering her. She was ready. Things were going to plan. Goodbyes were set. All ties just about tied. It was good, nice, and she was ready to see Bella and Edward again without a single bit of doubt lingering in her mind.

She really wasn't prepared for the canary yellow Porsche that was parked at the treaty line with the petite driver seated on the hood, smiling brightly as Sue stopped the car next to her.

They shared a look, the elder woman nodding once before Roman jumped out of the car to join the vampire. Sue didn't hesitate to leave.

"Hey, Alice."

"Roman! It's wonderful to see you. Get in."

Furrowing her brow, she hitched her bag higher on her shoulder as she made her way around the car. "What's going on?"

"You're spending the day at my house."

"I am? Why?"

The girl grinned, the car purring with her gentle coaxing. "That's where all the fun's gonna be."

She laughed. "That sounds promising."

"It is. Though, I feel like I should warn you. Edward made me tell Bella," she starts, talking quickly. "We're having a graduation party. I thought it would be fun since it's your first time."

The world slows to a stop before it comes crashing around her. She makes a mournful sound at the back of her throat. "The first time? Do I actually have to keep going back? Can't I just be a shut-in?"

Her laughter is light and twinkling. "It wouldn't be fair for you to sit around doing nothing all day while we go to school."

"Can't I at least go to college? At least then I could learn something different every time instead of just repeating the same boring stuff."

"You can recycle the same boring stuff."

"Alice," Roman says, voice deadly serious. "I barely got through high school the first time. What makes you think I'll be able to do it again?"

She smiles, white teeth glinting. "Because you'll know everything already."

"Alice!"

"Relax. You don't have to worry about it just yet. Besides, it doesn't have anything to do with my party."

"A party will be cool. Is it going to be like a real teenager party?"

"Of course! How could you think so little of me? It'll be the best party you've ever gone to."

"Well, I haven't gone to many. We don't throw many parties around here."

"This will be one for the ages, then."

When we got to the house, Alice perched herself on the bottom step of the stairs, her face in her hands. Carlisle, Esme and Jasper were watching the news intently, the sound so low she couldn't hear a thing being said.

The other two were nowhere to be seen as Roman lead herself in, sitting silently near the window and the grey brightness.

Fiddling with her hands she waited patiently for them to show up. She didn't have to wait long. The car parked directly in the garage and she bounced up from her seat to go and greet them, buzzing with energy that she hadn't had moments ago.

It was clear to her what the news was about after watching for a few minutes, even with the sound off. It made her anxious, jittery with poorly contained nerves.

Seattle was riddled with monsters.

Her fears were momentarily tossed aside as she was faced with the most beautiful people. Her heart jumped, fluttering wildly against her ribs as she wrapped an arm around each of them.

"Hey, Edward. Ditching, girls?" Emmett asks, ambling through the kitchen door.

"We all are," Edward reminded him.

Emmett grinned. "Yeah, but it's their first time through high school. They might miss something."

"I can assure you that missing one day isn't going to make me dumber than I already am," Roman quips, grunting when Bella elbows her in the side.

Her words are nearly drowned out by Emmett's laughter as she's scolded.

Edward ignores them, moving forward as he tosses a newspaper to Carlisle.

"Have you read this?"

The man frowns. "Not yet. They've been talking about it on CNN all morning."

"It's getting worse. We're going to have to step in soon."

"I didn't want to intervene unless we had to. We aren't the Volturi."

"I don't want to risk the Volturi getting so close," Edward says and it feels like she's heard these words too many times.

"All those innocent people," Esme muttered. "They don't deserve to die like this."

"Let's go now," Emmett said with sudden enthusiasm. "I'm dead bored."

A hiss echoed down the stairway, chilling with cold fury.

"She's such a pessimist," Emmett mutter to himself.

Edward turns to him. "We'll have to go some time."

Carlisle was shaking his head. "I'm concerned. We've never involved ourselves in this kind of thing before."

Roman turns at the flash of blonde hair, not having the courage to meet Rosalie's dead set, smooth expressionless mask.

She couldn't blame her for the strength of her anger when it came to her mate's recklessness. The thought of Edward going out there, facing them because he didn't want to wait for the Volturi to do their job, made her want to lock him away somewhere. There was nothing that could hold him. Her partners were stubborn that way, and Roman was apparently the only one that was willing to bend when she had to.

Guess that was what he meant when he said she evened them out.

Though it shouldn't have been necessary, she shouldn't have needed to worry about keeping them safe. If the Volturi were the big bad wolf of the vampire community then they wouldn't have let themselves come this close to exposure. This would have been settled as soon as they realized it was one of their kind.

So why weren't they here?

"Oh," Edward said sharply, turning his head slightly to look at Jasper. "I didn't think of that. I see. You're right, that has to be it. Well, that changes everything."

Roman looks up to him, expectant. She kinda enjoyed it when he did stuff like this, the vague talking that only he knew what he was talking about.

"I think you'd better explain to the others," Edward said to Jasper. "What could be the purpose of this?"Edward started to pace, staring at the floor, lost in thought.

She turned to him, not having noticed when Alice had moved to his side.

"What is he rambling about?" she asked him, pressed close to his side. "What are you thinking?"

Jasper didn't seem to enjoy the attention that everyone was giving him. She didn't blame him. The way his family looked to him, all of them circled, could be construed as a little intimidating.

"You're intrigued," he says to her, eyeing her closely before his gaze shifts to Bella. "You're confused."

"We all are," Emmett complains with a loud groan.

"You have time to be patient," Jasper scolds his brother. "They should know. They are one of us now."

She would deny the flush of joy that lit through her, burning heat through her that ran to the very top of her ears. Acceptance was always incredibly pleasing. She's had never thought Edward would lie about how his family felt about her, no, she thought that perhaps he might try to spare her feelings a bit, though.

"How much do you know about me?" Jasper asked.

"Not much," Bella tells him, glancing at Roman.

The girl shakes her head. "Nothing. I didn't think it was my place to ask."

Jasper stared at Edward, who looked up to meet his gaze.

"No," Edward answered his thought. "I'm sure you can understand why I haven't told them that story.But I suppose they need to hear it now."

Jasper nodded thoughtfully and then started to roll up the arm of his ivory sweater.

Taking a small step forward, she looks over his arm with a small frown. She didn't know what she was looking for at first, not understanding why he would decide to just show them his arms, but then the light from the lamp reflects against the pale skin and she could see the faint crescent mark on his wrist that he traced with the tip of his finger.

It was strange, odd, and she couldn't quite understand what it was until Bella gasped, raising her own hand as she gestured to the mark on her own cream skin.

The bite marks that littered the length of his arm. Roman could remember the story of how Bella had gotten the one mark, the tracker that had tried to turn her just to hurt Edward, and her stomach turned. Who had done this to him?

Bella gapes.  "What happened to you?"

"The same thing that happened to your hand," Jasper answered in a quiet voice."Repeated a thousand times." He laughed a little ruefully and brushed at his arm. "Our venom is the onlything that leaves a scar."

"Why?" she whispered, holding herself back from touching him.

"I didn't have the same upbringing s my siblings. My beginning was something else entirely," he says, voice hard. "You must understand that there are places in our world, Bella,where the life span of the never-ageing is measured in weeks, and not centuries."

Roman could feel Edward's gaze on them intent and focused as they listened, judging their expressions as Jasper spoke each word.

A boy, barely a man, left to join the confederacy, of all things, only to get dragged into vampire fight club.

Newborn armies full of poor people that were destined to die once they were no longer useful, people that killed ruthlessly, made to fight against other vampires for territory -- for human blood.

She stills, missing most of the ending, the happy part where Alice came, as Bella's room flashed before her eyes. They went East then South and they would have gone toward Seattle. They would need a target, something that would make the Cullen's vulnerable because someone must have known about the coven and their strength.

If someone was going to tip them off then making Edward nervous and anxious when he could read your thoughts and plans, making him distracted, would be a good way to go about it.

Why else would a vampire that had stolen a bunch of Bella's things head toward Seattle?

If they had only come for Bella then it was someone they knew. Someone that was targeting them directly.

Roman sits on the sofa, head spinning with this unfamiliar sense of searching. It was like everything was turning into her forest, each thought a different messy trail that was trying to connect. It hurt, pounding behind her eyes as she drops her face into her hands.

"Breathe. Deep breaths," Edward tells her, cold fingers pressing to her temples. "Relax, I can't understand what you're thinking."

Okay, so maybe she was thinking too hard, trying to force herself to make the connection, to find what she was missing because Roman had never not found what she was looking for and it was literally going to drive her crazy.

She needed to know. It was one of the most important things, not for them and what everything would mean for safety or whatever, but for her sanity.

But it was right there, right in front of her just out of reach. She could almost taste it.

The throbbing fades quickly, replaced by this easy serenity that makes her sigh in relief.

"Ah, I see now," Edward says, glancing between her and Jasper. "The intruder is from the army. Roman reasons that he might be trying to lure us to them."

"Why? We aren't a threat to anyone," Esme worries.

"You're the only ones in the general area, though," she says, eyes still closed as she forces maps away. "That or it's personal. I can't see how it would be personal though... I just can't make sense of that."

The sofa dips, fingers curling around her own and she snaps her gaze to Bella, thoughts of paths and impossible solutions fading away. Her presence alone was comforting.

"If we want to avoid the Volturi's involvement, we will have to destroy the newborns, and we will have to do it very soon." Jasper's face was hard. "I can teach you how. It won't be easy in the city. The young ones aren't concerned about secrecy, but we will have to be. It will limit us in ways that they are not."

"They don't know they're coming after us," Alice insists.

"What is that?" Edward asked, curious and tense. "What are you remembering?"

"Flickers," Alice said. "I can't see a clear picture when I try to see what's going on, nothing concrete.But I've been getting these strange flashes. Not enough to make sense of. It's as if someone's changingtheir mind, moving from one course of action to another so quickly that I can't get a good view. . . ."

"Indecision?" Jasper asked in disbelief.

"Not indecision," Edward says. "Knowledge. Someone that knows how your visions work."

Roman swallows. She was really hoping this wouldn't be a personal thing. All this speculation about who and when and why -- it was making her terrified despite knowing that they wouldn't let anything happen to her.

The Volturi, because Edward swore it had to be them, were trying to make a show of things, trying to claim him and Alice, and likely Bella, for himself.

She shuddered. 

And the talk of killing them and how to. They were far more dangerous than the others, Jasper claimed, stronger... she was going to be one of them. Soon.

Carlisle was on the phone, talking to Tanya, a cousin from Denali, about getting help when Edward raged, cursing Laurent. 

It took her an embarrassing moment to call up the memory that she had shoved deep down. The man from the woods. Bella gasps and Roman turns around her automatically, soothing. 

"What's the problem?" Emmett murmured to Edward. 

 "Irina was more involved with our friend Laurent than we knew. She's holding a grudge against thewolves for destroying him to save the girls. She wants —" He paused, looking down at them.

"Go on," Bella encourages. 

Edward's eyes tighten, mouth pinching. "She wants permission to take revenge out on the pact. Destroy them. In exchange, they'll provide their help."

"No!" They shout. Roman leaps from the couch, shaking with barely contained fury. Seth.

"Don't worry," Edward soothe, his hand coming to rest at the small of her back. "Carlisle would never allow that." 

"This isn't good," Jasper comments, frowning at the floor. "The sides are too even. We wouldn't have the numbers. We'd win, but at what price?"

Roman's hand locks on Edward's wrist, tense as she looks around the room at all the familiar faces. 

A smaller hand slips into her own, squeezing. This was her family now, their family. Who would they lose? What was the price they would have to pay for safety?

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2019-11-26