Chapter Text
PURPLE RAIN | ERA 2
Up until this day, Valerie Addams thought that the worst day of her life was the day her best friend died. Now she knew that the worst day of her life was saying goodbye to Forks.
‘I love you too, mom.’ Elizabeth embraced her daughter, tears threatening to spill from her eyes and her arms begging for her not to let go of her baby daughter. The surgeon tried to keep her emotions inside for the sake of her daughter, trying to not get emotional and be happy for her baby, but it was hard letting go of a child. It was even worse when your mother instinct was telling you that something wasn’t quite right.
‘You could stay, honey. You could stay for two more months. Stay for graduation, stay for-’
Valerie smiled sadly.
‘I’ve graduated, mom. And I have a place in England, I want to start my life as soon as I can.’
The lies burnt her throat, but she hid the hurting of lying underneath the hurting of leaving; leaving because she had no other choice. If her mother wanted to live, then she would have to live with the sadness of her daughter leaving her forever. It was better to live without her than to not live at all.
‘I’ll miss you, you know.’ Angela whined, her arms enveloping her best friend in a tight hug. The girl had secretly hoped that Valerie would stay, that they would walk to get their High School diplomas together and that they would go to a big party after, getting themselves drunk until they couldn’t talk; Angela dreamed about going to the same college in the States as Valerie so she could get away from Jessica’s toxicity and start over with someone that appreciated her as a friend, that appreciated her kindness and that shared the same with her. But it was impossible: Valerie Addams wanted to go to Europe and that was where she would go.
They dropped her off by the airport entrance, right in front of the parking lot. She told them that she would feel better this way, that it would hurt less to leave them behind and just go, to just walk her way to her airport gate on her own.
That wasn’t the main reason.
Finally alone, Valerie grabbed her tickets. Italy waited for her.
England would never become real.
»»
The last time she had been on an airplane had been with Jasper.
Valerie swallowed the memory; Jasper was dead to her. Jasper wasn’t part of her life anymore, and if she could, she would love to erase every single memory of his existence from her brain. So no, the last time she had been on an airplane hadn’t been with Jasper Hale – it had been with her mother when she was going to Forks to start all over. The only thing she started all over in Forks was a new cycle of insanity.
Valerie could try to forget about Jasper, but she would never forget Aro’s words.
‘I’m sure you could graduate early, with a little bloody hand.’ Her world shook. Once again, vampires were deciding everything for her: her faith, her dreams, her entire life. She had no other choice but to go with Aro, even though she had no idea what he wanted. He wasn’t going to kill her, no, she was sure of that. He wanted her for something. Maybe he was expecting her to give him information about the Cullen’s – information she didn’t have. Valerie had come to the realization that she didn’t know anything about the family; after all, Jasper had lied to her for so long that she couldn’t decide what was true and what wasn’t anymore. Aro looked pleased, like he could hear her inner monologue. ‘I’m sure you would want to do it the human way, go to college, do whatever you humans do, but I also know you wanted to go to Europe.’
‘Not to live with you, that’s for sure.’ It was her answer. Aro looked pleased once again.
‘We appreciate people with a brain, people with the desire of being better, to know better. All types of Art are important, but the Arts of the Mind are the ones which appeal to me the most. I’m sure you can agree with me. Our library and our knowledge would be at your full mercy and desire.’
Valerie couldn’t agree with anything. She didn’t want to go to Volterra to live with a Vampire Coven that was dangerous, that had no respect for human life and that had antagonized the Cullen’s for so long. After all, the Cullen’s weren’t to blame for Jasper’s behavior and she still had a soft spot for them.
‘What if I want to leave?’ She swallowed. ‘Can I leave?’
Aro smiled wickedly.
‘Does that matter, dear? Do you have much of a choice?’ It was his sweet reply, his cold hand reaching towards her cheek.
She didn’t let him touch her. She shed a tear instead.
The memories were now only memories. After what happened with Jasper, the Cullen’s had moved, Bella going with them and Charlie agreeing God knows how. But Valerie couldn’t stand being in Forks anymore, as Forks had turned into Phoenix – her personal hell on earth where everyone looked at her when she walked by, where everyone whispered behind her back about what happened in her past.
So Valerie had no other chance than to leave her mother and Angela, to fly right into Aro’s arms.
Valerie found Volterra to be just like Carlisle and Jasper described; full of smiling, innocent people who talked in a language she didn’t understand, that walked those streets with their kids on their hands and shopped on small shops built in the archways of ancient buildings. Volterra was full of small houses full of flowers, music and children playing and talking, woman working on their gardens and men chatting about their cars. Volterra was too different from Forks.
It looked almost too normal to be true.
As the taxi driver left her next to a beautiful fountain with her two huge bags and two backpacks, she wanted to sit down next to the laughing children playing with the water. She wanted to sit down for a while as she let the sun soak in her skin and pretend that her life wasn’t going to be a living hell for the next years – maybe, if she were to be lucky, Aro would be done with her in a few days and she would just disappear, leaving her mother and Angela with no trace of her existence.
At least she would meet with Mary soon enough.
The castle – palace, haunted house, whatever that thing was -, looked almost inviting in daylight; every stone looked like it had been carefully placed, carved especially to be placed to be set on perfection; from afar and with the sunlight, the stones looked almost yellow-ish, but not in a dirty way – every single centimeter of the stones looked polished, shining and blinding her with almost as many strength as the sun did. There was a large turret rising above the rest of the structure, almost piercing through the sky, and some windows scattered around the building; she wondered what those were for; she also wondered if she would be able to see the sun again, the streets again, to hear the children laughing again, once she set foot inside. Probably not.
Valerie had to remember herself that the castle had probably been built on blood and tears from humans and maybe vampires who had suffered in the hands of the Volturi; she had to remember herself that there was nothing beautiful or interesting about it. She wondered if the walls inside could talk and if they could, if they would choose to cry instead.
Dragging her bags with her, she was soon in front of the big entrance – literally big, as the wooden door looked like it could handle a thousand horses trying to tear it down. She grabbed the handle, ready to make her presence announced, just like Aro told her – even though she was pretty sure he knew she was there already and was just fucking with her mind. Before she could say goodbye to Volterra, to her mother, to the sun that she was leaving behind, someone opened the door.
That someone didn’t have red-crimson eyes, a stupid smile and straight hair to their shoulders – that someone wasn’t Aro, as Valerie was expecting; it was a human woman a few years older than her. She stood a little taller than Valerie, with long, jet black hair and a beautiful symmetrical face. Her eyes were green, she was still breathing and she wasn’t that pale, which brought a little comfort to Valerie, but soon made her want to run away – what was a human doing there, and most importantly, why was she smiling?
‘You must be Valerie,’ She spoke, Valerie immediately noticing her American accent. So she wasn’t Italian. ‘Master told me you would come. My name is Gianna.’
Master?
Fuck it. Fuck everything, she wasn’t going to be calling Aro Master. She wasn’t about to be calling anyone Master, for the matter. She gave Gianna the cold shoulder, of course, not even answering her or acknowledging. That didn’t seem to bother the woman as she let out a giggle and pointed Valerie to come in so she could close the door. Valerie wanted to close the door on her face and run away, but she didn’t have much option, so she stepped inside.
And honestly, it was the weirdest shit she had ever encountered.
It was a reception area – it was literally the reception area of a museum. There was a desk and ancient tables around with a lot of flyers with information about Volterra and the Volturi castle, ancient furniture scattered around and paintings decorating the big stone walls.
‘We don’t usually use this entrance, we usually use the church one but I guess Aro wanted you to see Volterra. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ No answer from Valerie. ‘Well, I’m going to take you to your room so you can rest, I’m sure it was a very difficult trip.’
It wasn’t a difficult trip – it had been the worst trip of her entire life. She had literally flown to her death sentence and she was walking right in its direction. As Gianna kept babbling about how fantastic the castle was, how great the weather in Volterra was and how much she just loved her Masters, Valerie realized she was being led to an elevator. The thought of Aro using the elevator made her want to crack up. She was really fucked, wasn’t she?
By looking at the numbers on the elevator, she realized the elevator only went down, even though there were clearly more floors above them. Valerie was curious about finding out about them – she wondered if she would survive enough time to explore the castle and maybe find some of Aro’s dirty secrets. Gianna clicked on the -1; she had no idea what there was on the -2 or -3 and she was almost sure she didn’t want to find out. So her room was located on the -1, which meant she would literally be living under the castle’s floor. She could only hope that Aro remembered that humans couldn’t really breathe without oxygen.
‘The living area is mostly beneath the city, on these three different floors.’ Gianna explained, while they went deeper and deeper. ‘The first floor is where our rooms are located and they accommodated everything so they could receive human life in here.’ She looked too happy about that, like her Masters had been kind enough to do that. ‘It’s only the two of us down here, but we have heating and ventilation and everything. There’s also a kitchen, a dining room and a common living space.’
‘That’s where they keep their blood bags, I suppose then.’ Valerie spat out, and Gianna flinched a little; she obviously didn’t like her Masters being offended, but she acted like she didn’t hear Valerie.
‘We’re not supposed to visit the other two floors, so if I were you, I wouldn’t try to go there.’ As soon as Gianna said those words, the elevator doors opened and she stepped into the floor.
Valerie could breathe. She was happy that at least she could breathe, but it was clear that this area was colder than the reception one. There was a lot of artificial light and a lot of tapestry and paintings decorating the stone walls, but that was it. Everything looked ancient, old, dead. And Valerie hated it deeply. As they walked, Gianna was pointing to every door, indicating the living room, the dinning room and the kitchen.
And then there was another door that Gianna didn’t open.
‘I have to go upstairs. This is your room. Master Aro told me you’re supposed to wait for him inside. I’ll see you around.’
And then she left just as soon as she arrived.
Thank god.
Valerie’s room looked like somewhere where the King of England would like to live, except that fuck no. It was all decorated in a mix of medieval and gothic furniture and everything was red and black. Everything was cold and everything screamed “get away while you can.”
She put her bags next to the bed and stood in the middle of her room taking in her surroundings. Her bed was as big as the one in Forks, but it didn’t look nowhere as comfortable. The headboard was black and red and she realized the bed had side drawers – maybe she could keep some blades there when she really felt like killing herself. Both besides were black with small dragons decorating the edges, carved into the wood clearly a few centuries ago. The vanity in front of her bed was also black, with a red mirror that reflected the image of someone that was already dead. She had a closet to put her clothes on, but she knew she wouldn’t last enough days on Hell to actually put her clothes away. It was better to keep them on the bags, anyway.
Valerie sat down on the bed, dust making her cough.
Everything was cold– too cold for her liking, not only in temperature but also in mood. She couldn’t help but compare the way these people lived to the way the Cullen’s got her used to. Everything was warm, beautiful and soft at the Cullen’s.
Volturi weren’t clearly fans of soft.
He wanted to make her aware of his presence; maybe to scare her, maybe to feel superior, she didn’t know. The only thing she knew was that Aro was coming, and that she needed to brace herself.