Karma

Alec left Jane with strict instructions not to leave the hotel room while he was hunting. He raced out into the night, hoping she would sleep while he was gone. He wasn't far from the last known location of Corin, at least by vampire standards, and hoped to find her without Jane weighing him down, both physically and emotionally. He hated moving at a human pace, but he would've done so willingly enough if his sister didn't complain every step of the way.

Alec was in desperate need of a fix from Corin's gift. His emotions had been going completely haywire, making him prone to constant irritability and bouts of rage. He was unable to find inner peace or contentment, the emotions Corin had been manufacturing within him for centuries. He had forgotten how to create his own feelings of happiness and joy after being out of practice for so long. Corin had used her gift ever since he awoke as a newborn, grateful to Aro for saving him from the burning pyre the townspeople had built for him and his sister, and bonded by Chelsea with a fierce loyalty to the Volturi, so his feelings had never really been his own since he became a vampire.

He had tremors now too, making him slow and clumsy for a vampire, though they weren't noticeable to human eyes yet. He also felt a stabbing ache in his chest and head, relentlessly assaulting him. He felt a new kinship for the homeless junkies he used to hunt while out on missions for the Volturi, guessing they'd often had familiar sensations and thinking at least he'd put them out of their misery.

After feeding, Alec tracked down the address Demetri had given him, surprised and alarmed by the sound of a single heartbeat in the tiny cottage. Breaking inside, he found the humanoid Corin asleep in her bed. A burst of rage welled up inside him, tempting him to wring her neck. She's just as bad as a Jane! Why couldn't she stick to the animal diet? he thought angrily, glaring down at her malevolently. No doubt she's lost her gift like Jane did. Now what?

Sensing his gaze, her eyes popped open and darted in his direction. The predatory gleam was obvious even to her human eyesight, as the moonlight reflected off his pupils, making them shine in the darkness.

"Have you come to kill me?" she inquired calmly.

"No," he sighed, struggling to contain his disappointment. "I suppose I can help hide you until the cure is found, so you can be restored."

She immediately shook her head, scowling. "No! I don't want to be cured! I like being human. I like not having a gift. I just want to be normal."

"We need your gift," Alec growled, frustrated. "We don't want to need it, but you've made us dependent on you. We're addicted now and going through severe withdrawals. So you will become a vampire again and fix the damage you've done!"

She shook her head emphatically. "No! Even if you force me to become a vampire again, I won't use my gift anymore! I won't be anybody's puppet! I was trapped by Chelsea into following Aro's bidding, locked in a tower for centuries and forced to use my gift with no thought to my own needs, wants, or desires. Forget it! I'll never use that stupid gift again."

"You have to!" Alec roared. "I'm hurting because you used it on me, then took it away! I can't even function! You've made me into a damn addict and you will fix it!"

"No," she refused, quietly but determinedly. "I won't. I killed Sulpicia and Athenadora because they refused to take no for an answer, desperately clinging to me and begging for more, and I'll do the same to you. I refuse to be used anymore."

The tentative grasp of control over his emotions Alec had tenaciously been clinging to suddenly snapped, flooding him with rage, allowing his instincts to take over his mind. Corin was no longer a sentient being with whom he'd shared a castle for well over a thousand years, or even a means to an end. She was now an obstacle in his path, the cause of his pain and turmoil, but no longer the remedy. His path was clear. She needed to pay for what she'd done to him. She needed to be eliminated, so she could never have power over him again.

He ripped her to shreds, bathing the room in her blood. When he finally returned to himself, his chest was heaving, his skin sticky. He felt slightly nauseous at the horrific scene before him, the gristly carnage and raw destruction he'd wrought. He didn't want to scare his sister by returning to her doused in vital fluids and bits of flesh, so he stepped into the shower, clothes and all, letting the warm water wash him clean.

He raced back to the hotel afterward, his shoes squishing and squelching with every step. The wind whipping past his body dried his clothes until they were merely damp, but his socks were still soaked inside his shoes, irritating his skin the way they wrinkled and rubbed. Normally it wouldn't really bother him, but he was operating on an extremely short fuse these days, and every little thing seemed like an insurmountable problem.

Once back in the room, he instantly ascertained that his sister had been missing for several hours, likely going out not long after he'd left her on her own. Growling to himself over her defiance, he quickly changed into dry clothes and shoes so he could blend in with the humans and went looking for her, following her scent trail.

To his dismay, he found her scent mingled with a vampire's and worried that he now had another humanoid to protect. He realized the vampire had picked Jane up and run with her, and he followed the trail into the forest.

Ivan watched Alec approach from his perch up in a tree. Ivan had recognized Jane when he saw the girl glaring at a human woman, causing the woman to begin rubbing her temples as she stumbled away. He'd seen that glare on the young teen's face years before when it was directed at himself and his mate. Even though neither he nor his mate had broken the law and were both perfectly willing to cooperate with the Volturi's investigation of a rogue vampire who'd passed through their territory days before, the sadistic young witch had insisted upon using her gift prior to the interrogation to 'ensure they were aware of the consequences if they didn't answer quickly and truthfully'.

Ivan had hated the little bitch ever since, holding a grudge for the pain his mate had needlessly endured, but had been powerless to do anything about it. Upon seeing Jane in humanoid form, he had gleefully kidnapped her and brought her out into the woods where he had tortured her slowly before ending her completely. The Volturi decree had given him the power to take out his enemy with royal sanction. It was a duty that was a pleasure to perform.

Alec fell to his knees, crumpling in on himself, when he found his twin's remains. She'd been dismembered, the body parts carelessly tossed aside, bits and pieces strewn all over the ground. It reminded him of the gruesome scene inside the cottage he'd left behind, but soon realized the difference. His sister had been deliberately and methodically tortured, her death drawn out, her pain maximized before her heart stopped beating, whereas Corin's execution had taken mere seconds, her soul rapidly dispatched, her mind blissfully unaware of her body being shredded.

Ivan watched the boy fall apart. Alec had stoically watched the proceedings, his expression bored and unconcerned, as Jane tortured Ivan and his mate for her own amusement. He hadn't tried to stop her, hadn't spoken up, hadn't cared at all. As far as Ivan was concerned, that made the boy equally guilty. At least the other guardsman, Demetri, had grimaced. He'd apologized with his eyes and had sharply commanded, "Enough! They are innocent. Save your wrath for the one who deserves it!"

Jane had stopped then, but had glared at Demetri in such a way as to make him flinch infinitesimally. Ivan had realized that Jane used her gift on the Volturi tracker, albeit briefly, to punish him for speaking out against her. The fact that Demetri had already been tensed and reacted so minutely spoke volumes. Demetri had known how she would react to his words before he spoke them, had expected the pain and readily absorbed it, which meant he was used to being on the receiving end of Jane's gift. That had earned Ivan's respect and forgiveness for the man.

Ivan was pleased to see the pained emotions on Alec's face, glad to have caused him to feel the same helplessness and misery he'd felt while his mate suffered under the witch's torture. He saw the moment the boy recognized that his sister had been tortured and vowed vengeance. It was the moment he'd been waiting for, and he sprang from the tree, beheading the infamous teenager in one smooth movement before he could utilize his slow moving mist to defend himself.

Ivan laughed with glee upon noting the impotent rage in the boy's eyes. "That's right. You're helpless now, unable to attack the one who tortured your sister. How does it feel to know you failed to protect her, that she felt intense pain and agony, which you were not only unable to prevent but cannot even avenge?"

He saw the light of recognition in Alec's eyes and nodded. "That's how I've felt for hundreds of years, ever since your sister tortured my mate for no reason. You watched, uncaring then, but I bet you care now. You could've stopped her, but you chose to condone her actions with your silence and disinterest instead, giving her free reign to inflict her terror and agony on those undeserving of it."

Remorse flickered briefly in Alec's eyes, knowing he and Jane brought this on themselves. They'd believed themselves invincible and for so many years they had been, but once the plague hit, everything changed. Part of him had known, standing in the throne room encircled by the hatred and malevolent glares of former comrades, that it would only be a matter of time before their past would catch up with them. It's why he'd taken his sister and run with her, why he hadn't dared trust anyone to know or help once Jane had become infected. They no longer had Aro and Chelsea to protect them, to ensure begrudging forgiveness and lack of consequences for their callous and hurtful treatment of others, and he'd known there'd be a line of those seeking retribution for their past actions.

"The best part of this, is that I have Volturi approval, so I don't even have to worry about them retaliating against me for taking my vengeance," Ivan admitted cheerfully. "She was a humanoid, so I was doing my duty by destroying her. You had obviously been hiding and protecting her, clearly in direct defiance of the order to kill. Therefore, you made yourself an enemy of the Volturi, committing treason by deliberately ignoring a royal decree. Thus, I'm doing my duty once again by destroying you. This is the best day I've had in years!"

He built a bonfire, toasting the two witch twins together, watching carefully to make sure there was nothing left of Alec to be put back together. After making sure the ashes were out and wouldn't start a forest fire, he skipped happily home to his mate to inform her of his busy night. He was delighted to be able to tell her the witch twins would never hurt her again, restoring the peace of mind and faith in him she'd been lacking ever since the torture session she'd endured hundreds of years before.

Demetri noted the loss of Corin's spark in the presence of Alec and the loss of Jane's spark in the presence of Ivan, followed by the loss of Alec as well. We've lost so many, he lamented. Maybe some of the newborns in Central America will be worth saving. I should bring Eleazar in to evaluate them before we kill them all. He'll have to help if he wishes to save his coven from the consequences of harboring a humanoid.

xxxxxxx

AN: Are you sorry to see the twins go or did they get what they deserved?