Tenebrous ↠ Volturi Kings {1} ✓

011

October 1994
Seven Years Old

The night was dark and still. Rowan was alone in the house, curled up on her bed underneath her comforter, eyes wide as she tried to see through the dark. She was young and still wary of the shadows that blanketed the night, but not quite afraid. It had hidden her before in plain sight, made her invisible, and though she had no idea how she had done it she had wished to be unseen again ever since it had happened.

The slammed door rattled the house as Curtis Ailes arrived home, stumbling drunk and furious. Rowan's eyes widened and she shrank even smaller, terrified, because the arrival of her father only meant pain.

"Rowan!" His voice was a loud roar, echoing throughout the house.

Silently, with tears already running down her face, Rowan slipped out of her bed and opened the door to her small closet. She could hear her heartbeat thundering in her ears as she pulled the door shut and curled up in the corner, shaking.

"Where are you?" Her father's voice was just as loud as he slammed open the door to her bedroom. Rowan pressed herself farther into the wall, wishing to melt away into the shadows and disappear as he stumbled around her room, raging and cursing the day she was born.

"Get out here you useless little brat! You didn't save your mother, you deserve this!" he slurred, the closet door abruptly pulled open.

Rowan stared up at her father through frightened blue eyes, her small hands in a death grip on the carpet. He looked around the dim closet as if staring right through her, like he hadn't seen her at all, and eventually cursed and turned away. "You better come out, girl! Or I swear you'll regret it! You'll regret ever being born!"

Rowan squeezed her eyes shut, tears still leaking from her eyelids, and did her best to not make a sound. He couldn't see her. The light was dangerous, but the shadows... the shadows were safe.

The shadows were the only thing that would protect her.

May 1996
Eight Years Old

Rowan had a stitch in her side from running for so long. Everything ached, from her feet to her still-tender ribs that were still healing despite the obvious absence of a bruise. She followed the road, staying out of sight by use of the trees and the shadows that surrounded her. She flinched as an ambulance screamed by, the flashing lights briefly illuminating her scared face.

She kept going and prayed she would finally be free. This hope was what propelled her through the night, and she was walking slowly by the time the sun dipped up over the horizon, filtering warm rays through the trees. Rowan knew that she wouldn't be able to hide within the shadow now that the sun was out, as she couldn't quite grasp invisibility within the shade that the trees provided.

The cops found her as the sun was reaching its highest point. Rowan's stomach was growling loudly but she had learned to ignore the hunger that often gnawed at her insides.

"Hey, kid!" An older policeman, perhaps fifty, called for her.

Rowan's eyes widened, and for a moment their eyes met. The she bolted, running as fast as she could in the opposite direction. It didn't get her very far - the officer's partner grabbed her around the midsection and easily lifted her, taking her slight cry of pain to be one of panic instead.

"What are you doing out here all alone, huh?" The other police officer asked, once they had gotten her to calm down. He was younger, and his tag read Field. "Where are your parents?"

"I ran away," Rowan said.

"Why?" The older officer, whose name tag read Harris, asked.

Rowan was quiet, refusing to answer. She had learned a long time ago that no grown up would help - these police officers, however well-meaning, were no different in her eyes. Rowan's stomach growled.