H A U N T E D

f i f t y - s i x

f i f t y - s i x

There is no sweeter torture than the loss of your soul. It is an agony that Marcus never wished to curse on Aro, thus the death of Sulpicia was a blessing to his former brother's soul. Marcus reaches for Didyme, who stares at the ashes of her brother. Jane buries her hands into the remains of her creator. Of course, she never wished for the death of her brother, but she does not regret the departure of her sibling.

Didyme sighs in near relief when Marcus embraces her from the back, feeling his touch after half a millennium. It is the water of a dry season to the dying sunflower, and she yearns for it. But she knows that the hands that take Marcus' in hers, are not her own. The body that placed consoling pecks on Marcus' shoulder, have been reduced to ashes and stored away in a golden urn.

"Marcus...", she whispers his name, and his body tenses against hers. His body prepares for the blow before it comes, his muscles tightening and his eyelids squeezing shut to stop himself from seeing the collateral damage to his kin's sins. Before, he was somehow prepared to live the rest of forever without Didyme or with - oh well, he'll admit it. He loves Ophelia, but it's not the kind where you're infatuated with the other's being, chasing them like stardust. He didn't even grow to love her, either, even though he tried to. No, he learned to love her, but not the way as that boy swore she deserved to be.

"She didn't deserve this, my love", Didyme turns in his arms, reaching out to cup his cheeks. He opens his eyes to stare down at Didyme, his fingers digging into her gowns, into her borrowed body.

"Be fair, let her go. She never had a choice, remember?", Didyme recalls the day of Ophelia's transformation, something the girl herself couldn't remember until Didyme starts to reminisce about the day, from her haunting place behind Marcus' throne.

When Heidi brought Ophelia to them three years ago, the human girl had reeked of their kind, from what Caius corrected as being exposed to them for an extended amount of time. She obviously knew of their kind, and Caius wanted to rip her head off from her shoulders. Marcus flinches when he reminisces the way she sobbed, after trying to hold tears back as Caius held her by the throat. For a moment, the raw fear of the human girl penetrated Marcus' carefully built borders, and he impulsively called for Aro to read the girl's memories.

The moment Marcus had suggested that, the girl did not seem to fear for her own life, but rather, the life of another. She scrambled to get away from the vampires, not for self-preservation, but to keep a secret safe. This intrigued Aro so much, that he demanded Caius let her go. Ophelia fell like dead skin to the floor, hardly having time to collect herself before Aro swept her up in his arms once again, and his red eyes grew alight with new-found knowledge. The king looked over his shoulder at his friends, and the yellow smirk on his lips was greedy with hunger.

"It seems our dearest Carlisle has been keeping secrets from us, once again", he taunted Caius, whose temper grew hot like the surface of the sun.

"I have told you before, brother, they take us for fools!"

Aro hushed his brother, returning to read Ophelia's memories. Whereas he was interested in the Cullens at first, something else caught his attention, like the forbidden fruit hanging in front of him. His pink tongue flicked to wet his bottom lip, as the idea of power surged through him. When he looked back down at the blue eyes of Ophelia Lee, who seemed horrified in the hands of a monster, a plan formulated like warfare in his mind, and he prepared the moves and countermoves.

"Oh, my child, are you frightened?", he purred at Ophelia, whose bottom lip trembled in trepidation. Marcus thought, at once, how the girl reminded him of Didyme, with her innocence and naïvety. He wanted to capture her and set her free from Aro's hands, as he wishes he could've done centuries ago, but instead he leaned back in his throne, watching the interaction play off with curious eyes. It was obvious Caius wanted to say something, but the blonde king bit down on his lip.