Change of Pace (Twilight: Demetri Volturi/OC)

Chapter 4

Nadia and her siblings woke up just before dusk that day when two men each came into their cells. They grabbed Nadia by her arms roughly pulling her up to her feet and dragging her along out of the cell doing the same with a struggling Jane and their unconscious mother. Nadia looked over at Alec who seemed to have not a care in the world as he let the men pull him along.

"Nadia! Alec! Mother! Nadia!" Jane cried out as she was behind their mother and the second one to be brought outside.

"Jane! Alec! Mother!" Nadia yelled pulling with all the force she was capable of against the men.

"That's enough!" A man shouted before hitting her on the back of the head with the wooden end of his pitch fork.

Nadia grew quiet as the men pulled her now limp form outside easily but the thirteen year old Jane still struggled the whole time they strung up her and her family on wooden posts above a pyre of wood.

The sun was seconds away from setting below the horizon when a man dropped the burning torch in the pile of wood bellow Mary the mother and eldest of them. "Start from oldest to youngest!" A man yelled. His instructions were followed though none in the crowd truly knew what they were doing.

Eventually the fire below Mary grew and the flames got on her dress as she burned alive. She made no sound however as she had been dead all night long and would not suffice being burned alive. This did not matter to the Village people as they grew to frenzy when she started to burn. Then the man lit Nadia's pyre but she had yet to awaken and gave them no screams of pain in which they desired.

"Nadia! Nadia! Please! Wake up!" Jane yelled at her sister as the fire grew in size.

Nadia began to stir when she smelt smoke from burning wood and the smell of burning flesh. She looked up and to her right where the only identifiable piece of her mother was the small gold cross necklace around her neck. The rest was the charred remains of her mother, that continued to burn. Nadia took a deep breath and regretted it instantly as she started choking on the smoke. She then realized the smell of burning flesh was getting stronger and at first thought it was from her mother before she felt an excruciating pain on her legs and feet. She looked down and saw her once dirty feet burnt a sickening black like coal. At first she didn't feel anything, no emotion or any pain until she felt the white-hot flames as they licked up her legs catching the bottom of her red dress on fire like leaves as it traveled all across her body burning the once beautiful fabric away. It was then that she let out a blood curdling scream of terror that was soon joined by another similar younger one. Nadia drew what little strength she had left and looked to the left with tears in her eyes blurring her vision to the pain filled face of her little sister Jane.

Nadia's gaze then moved to Alec who looked as numb as last night without making a single sound though he too was on fire. Nadia looked away as she could not look into her sibling's faces and offer them a comfort that she could not give them. Instead Nadia looked at the crowd that had assembled to watch the spectacle of the 'witches' burning. Many familiar faces were in the crowd, people she had seen on a daily basis since she could remember. Sophia the mid-wife who had delivered both her and her twin siblings into this world, then to Julia, Mr. Franklins widower. Mr. Franklin never did come back that day when Nadia ordered him to go hunt for food. Then Nadia's gaze fell on to that of the priest who was reading words she could not hear from a book she could hardly see as the screams of her and her sister and the flames that surrounded her were too high. Nadia guessed that the superstitions of the local people about her family had finally become too much to endure.

Nadia felt no love for these people that surrounded her, all she wanted was to make them let her and her family go and then chop more wood and make their own pyres and burn the same way they intended for her and her siblings. She wished she could order the energy around them to do her bidding and rip the flesh off their skin as they screamed 'bloody murder'

Jane listened to the blood curdling screams that Nadia and she were sending off into the night. She looked over at her brother Alec and the calm, numb face he held before moving her gaze to Nadia who was glaring at the villagers with the most hatred filled gaze Jane had ever seen on her elder sister's face before. Jane then looked at the surrounding villagers and her gaze to turned to that hatred. All she wished for in her last moments were for everyone here to feel the pain that she now felt.

Alec listened to the horrible screams of his sisters that he so admired and loved. He felt to numb to feel any pain as the flames climbed up his body. All he wished for as he looked at the only people he loved in this world was to take away all of their pain so that they could die peacefully.

Little did the three siblings know there was a man who had watched them ever since they were young, he had heard of the strange abilities the children seemed to have and watched them grow and witness these things for himself a few times. He had received word about the happenings of the family and arrived at the scene as his dear ones burned alive. He quickly disposed of the gathered crowd and grabbed the eldest girl from the stake and set her on the cold dirt ground. He quickly bit both sides of her neck and then both wrists he took a moment to look over the girl who even though marred by hideous burns was still very beautiful.

He stood up quickly and grabbed the other girl from the stake and bit her in the same places he had bit the eldest. Quickly he then grabbed the young boy off the stake and bit him as well sending as much venom into his blood stream as he could.

Aro was then joined by two of his companions Marcus his brother in law and Caius. Aro swiftly moved to the eldest girl's side as she had become a personal favorite of his and picked her up bridal style before nodding to Marcus and Caius to do the same with the twin siblings. Once they were all secured they sped off into the night to their home in Volterra, Italy.

Nadia closed her eyes as she felt death begin to welcome her soul in its cold embrace when she felt her physical body being lifted and then set down. She thought for a moment that maybe she was hanging on to life and the fires were gone and the villagers had taken her body down from the stake when she felt it. The first bite on the left side of her neck causing a burn worse than the flames to start below her skin. It spread like wild-fire and she wanted so badly to scream even though it would not help but she had no energy left to make a single sound.