Soul not Included

Chapter 83

Edward brought me home as slowly as possible. I wanted the time to think.

Theo wasn't wrong of course. Or at least I can't bring myself to believe that he was wrong. I could reject his objection of Oliver being incapable of telling the Volturi. Oliver is more than capable of betraying us despite my desire to think otherwise but despite that...

"Do you think Ollie is really capable of fighting us?" I asked Ed as he carried me through the forrest. Because if Oliver wanted us dead he could have killed Simon when he was weak and tired from bringing me back. Which would be one less obstacle for him to deal with... 

"Me? Yes. You, no." Edward smiled a little. "I'm sure Theo would be able to talk to him. We would just— If you do that there will be no— wait. Wait. Mari." He set me down.

I grabbed at his arm and ushered us to sit down for a bit. 

"It would be problematic trying to provide an opportunity while everyone is dealing with— other things. So if we could do it before.." i said.

Edward shook his head, "this is what Simon keeps thinking you shouldn't do. If you send Theo and Demetri to track Oliver, not only might you deliver Demetri back to the Volturi but if they get caught Theo might be killed."

"Then we send the others. My coven. I can work around them. They can work and improvise much better with each other than they can with strangers since they've been training as a unit this entire time."

"And if they die?" Edward asked. I bit my lip. "You'll just be hurting yourself if you send them off and they don't come back."

I've gotten soft.

"You're not soft. You've grown into understanding that there is a limit to what everyone can do... and limits to what you can handle," he murmured. My thumb traced the lines on his palm. I think, there will be a better chance to send my coven. I know everyone here will be fine without them. Maybe we compromise and we keep Augie and Simon or send Simon...

"Simon won't leave you, Mari, please, calm down."

"I'm just saying! It would make it so much easier to fight if we don't have Oliver in the picture! So hear this, Theo wants to talk to Oliver, then okay. We let him. But not on the field. We'll need Benji to keep the Volturi scattered and easier for us to kill, right? We can't have him trying to create an opportunity to split Oliver off."

Edward frowned. His fingers tightening over mine. His mind working quickly. "I've seen Oliver fighting in Roses' and Demetri's memories... he isn't someone that we would be able to stop so easily."

"So we stop him before hand. If we keep Simon then we should send Augie, he'd hate that, but that would make one less human for everyone to worry about. Maybe Augie would have enough energy to amplify Demetri's tracking enough so Oliver wouldn't be able to block him and if Oliver can feel people coming, then there's two things that will happen... either one, Oliver is completely in the hands of the Volturi and is willing to kill everyone or two, Theo was right and Oliver would never want to hurt them and thus split off from the  Volturi at least long enough to tell us what's going on. What his purpose is and maybe we can convince him to split away from them."

"Three," Edward said. "There's Chelsea and Corin. Demetri doesn't seem to have completely shaken off his attachments to the Volturi. All they need is Chelsea to restrengthen his bonds to them and thus they can string in Theo who is attached to both Oliver and Demetri and through Theo they get Grace. And through Grace they get Augie, Bree, Diego and potentially Fred. Then they have Corin to make them content to join and we would have delivered to the Volturi more swords at their disposal. All our secrets would be revealed and they won't wait to listen to us after learning about the fight. They will come here to kill immediately."