𝐥𝐮𝐧𝐚𝐫 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐬 | carlisle cullen (3)

(𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐲-𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐫) forging a plan

✧✧✧

THEY WERE ALL STANDING THERE BY THE DOOR and now Carlisle wondered how he could possibly have let himself be followed like this. His mind so full of grief that he hadn't heard the soft footsteps or the baited breaths as they waited for Edward to decide what was really happening to their father.

"What is is?" Alice as cautiously.

"He's going to get himself killed!" Edward yelled.

"What?" Rosalie gasped, probably taking Edward's words in different meaning. After all, Carlisle had considered it. Pacing into Volterra, causing chaos, seeing the end in a flash of fire.

"I'm not going to get myself killed" Carlisle sighed.

"How do you see this ending?" Edward snapped, "do you really think you can go through with a plan like that and live to tell the tale. It's foolish and it's not worth it Carlisle"

"Frankly I don't care if I don't live to tell the tale" Carlisle frowned, "there's a lot you don't know"

"What's going on?" Emmett asked, "what are you planning on doing?"

"I'm planning on destroying the Volturi" Carlisle stated very casually as though he had been merely exchanging his plans for lunch.

"Why?" Rosalie murmured, "I think Edward has a point... this seems like a suicide mission and for what purpose, the Volturi didn't have anything to do with Este's death"

"The Volturi had everything to do with it" Carlisle stated angrily.

"What do you mean?" Jasper frowned.

"Caius" Carlisle got to his feet, "Caius plagued her mind, years ago. He's been tearing it apart ever since. Everything that happened to Este, everything that I... overlooked, it was him"

"You're saying that Caius is the reason she's dead?" Jasper looked horrified.

"I noticed when I went to stay with her. Her behaviour towards him was different, unexplainably so. When it was just us, she was herself and she never thought anything of it but I realised what he was doing. She couldn't believe me at the time, not until later on but at that point Caius had found a way into my mind as well"

"Didn't you think this was something we should know about?" Edward sounded angry, "were you ever going to tell us this or were you going to keep letting us believe that her death was entirely accidental"

"That doesn't matter now" Jasper interrupted, "Carlisle's right, we have to do something about this"

"No, I have to do something about this" Carlisle frowned, "I'm not dragging you all into this"

"What do you mean dragging us?" Rosalie scoffed, "we're already in this. She was our mother, we want revenge just as much as you do and there's no way you're going to be able to take down the Volturi on your own. You're going to need help"

Carlisle stared at his five children standing in the doorway staring at him intently. In his mind, the next pathway of his life was always going to be a journey that he took on his own. However, it didn't have to be. His children had given him purpose throughout much of his life that he would've alternatively spent alone. No matter how isolated he felt, how drowned in grief, they were always going to mean something to him.