The Shadows of the Sun

Chapter Six

                I woke up again when I felt Demetri come to a sudden stop. I heard voices, a lot of them. They were all fuzzy. I could feel Demetri's chest rumble as he spoke. I felt him gently turn me, as though to show me to someone. I felt frigid hands examine me, trailing over the black veins. The voices started up again. They seemed to be getting more and more fuzzy. I was beginning to feel a little sick. Scratch that, very sick. I forced my eyes open as I tried my best to get out of Demetri's arms. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't feel very bad for puking on his uniform, but then I would have to smell it as well. He seemed to get what I wanted. I vaguely noted we were in a yard-like place. There were seven vampires across from us. Well, one of them was a golden haired man who was right in front of me. That was all I had time to observe before losing my stomach all over the grass. My whole body shook with every heave. I felt hands support me as I continued. Finally, it stopped. My mouth tasted so bad, I was so tired. My whole body hurt. My ear was ringing. There was a constant buzzing in my head, this was getting worse. All my power had seemed to desert me when I needed it most. With shaking hands I glanced at my right forearm, the dark tendrils were creeping nearer and nearer to my tribe mark. Somehow I knew, when they reached it, it was all over. There was no saving me then. The ringing in my ears continued. The voices were still fuzzy, someone picked me up. I vaguely noted it was the guy with the golden hair. We entered a beautiful house, he kept moving until we were in a room with a medical set up. He set me down on a table like thing, and questioned someone behind him, Demetri, I realized. They seemed to talk for a while, I wasn't sure. I was far too tired, anyway, I could not even make out what they were saying. At some point the man, who I presumed to be a doctor based on the room and the fact they brought me to him in the first place, started feeling certain points of my arms and neck that had the thickest inky tendrils. When he touched a point on my neck I let out an involuntary hiss of pain. Ignoring my small display of pain he continued to feel it, I was too weak to move away from the pain. Finally, he stopped and said something to what was now the whole of the group that had brought me here. He searched around for something, then came back toward me. I caught a small glimpse of the needle before it was in my arm and a tingling sensation took over. After that my world went completely dark.

I came to consciousness quickly, probably due to the fact I was in a lot of pain. I had no clue where I was. I could sense someone else in the room with me, I cast my eyes around looking for them. I finally found him in a dark corner, Alec. I went to move, but was met with such a sharp pain it knocked the breath out of me. I let out a hiss of pain. Alec tensed. I scowled at him, so much for my escape attempt. I escape essentially the vampire palace, only to be downed and caught by some kind of sickness. What even was it? The door swung open and a man I vaguely remembered strolled in along with the other three Volturi guards. The three guards seemed to assess me in terms of threat lever, while the golden-haired man's assessment was more concerned. He spoke first.

"Hello, my name is Carlisle Cullen." I had no reaction to his words. Simply taking in the situation at hand. I was wearing different clothes, there was an IV line in my arm, and there was some sort of bandage on my neck. I quickly pulled up my right arm, glancing at my tribal marking, there were no black tendrils in sight. I slowly reached up a hand to touch the bandages around my neck. The man I now knew as Carlisle spoke again, "I'm sure you are probably confused as to what all this is." I once again made no gesture that showed him that I had heard, or understood his words. He cleared his throat in an almost uncomfortable way. "Well, you were, in simple terms, deathly ill. The origin of such illness seemed to be stemming from three points on your neck. I did an exploratory surgery and found a piece of dark stone embedded in each of the points. I removed them and got you on IV fluids, and it all seemed to resolve itself from there." It was strange to hear of a vampire doctor. I wondered vaguely if he worked on humans as well. Speaking of vampires, he did not have red eyes. Strange. I had never heard of that before. What caused the change? I redirected my mind to what he had said happened to me. A piece of dark stone? Suddenly I remembered the onyx that had flown when I had smashed the stones in the hallway of the Volturi castle. They must have gotten embedded within me. Well, that sort of sucked. I have a grand escape plan, only for it to be ruined by a small piece of stone. I swam the freaking ocean for crying out loud! My amazing escape was ruined by three small shards. Some Atheris I was. I sulked for the rest of the day while Carlisle finished up some of his doctor things. I was too weak to do anything, plus I was under constant guard. Apparently we were leaving for Volterra tonight. Yay. I worried what might happen now that I had gotten any from them so many times. Why did they even want me? Well, I assume for my gifts, speaking of which... I willed for a knife, a dagger, to appear in my concealed hand. Metal creaked around me as the dagger appeared, and my nose began to bleed. Well, shoot. If the noise didn't give it away then my nose certainly did. Demetri, who was on watch then, stiffened. He went utterly still then he stalked toward me. I slid the knife away from me in an attempt to hide it.

"Give it to me." He snarled.

"Give what?" I asked sharply, trying to feign innocence although it was utterly pointless. He let out a deep sign, pinching his nose.
"Just for once, make my life easy and give me the dang knife."

"I don't have a knife." I said, I mean, it wasn't a lie. I had a dagger, very different from a knife.

"Give me whatever weapon you just created, and I won't tell Aro so he won't immediately put a collar on you." He bargained. I narrowed my eyes.

"He will just read your mind." I pointed out.

"Well, you're going to get one anyway, I just have power to keep you free for another three days, as long as you are not a threat." With an animalistic snarl I thrust the dagger into his hands.

"For the record, I am only doing this so I can go to sleep." I growled. He gave me a little grin and examined the weapon. It was beautiful, almost as though my powers were welcoming me back after not using them for a while. With a nod to himself he thrust me a handful of tissues to clean my nose and flipped off the lights. I cleaned my face, then fell asleep quickly, already dreading the time I would awaken. As predicted I was shaken awake much too soon. The shaking was not what had mostly awoken me, it was the sudden pain in my knuckles. I groaned internally, knowing what years of running had done to me. I tended to throw a punch when I was awoken suddenly, and I had just thrown a very bad punch at a vampire. The vampire was also the big one who I had heard being called Felix. Awesome. Luckily for me he only growled a little, the punch not really doing any damage, only to my hand. I smiled a little sheepishly.

"We're leaving in 10 minutes, be ready." That was all he said before striding out. I noticed all the lines I had been stuck on earlier were out, and there was a fresh set of clothes on the chair near me. I quickly threw on the clothes and strode in the direction of the door. I opened it only to find that Felix had not gone far. I scowled and followed him down the stairs to where everyone else was gathered, including the doctor. They wasted no time with goodbyes and walked straight out of the door, towing me along. I looked over my shoulder to mouth a thank you to the doctor. He seemed nice enough. I may be back where I started, but at least I wasn't dead.