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Carlisle was true to his word. Emmett and Jasper were put on watch duty, despite Sage's honesty that she would not leave the house. She thought it very chivalrous if a bit offensive since she didn't need to do much to move the two vampires out of her way should she try to escape. It was nice of Carlisle to think about Sam, however.
So, for the next few hours, she returned back to her old room. She felt as though it had been years instead of a month since she had been in what was Edward's old room. Everything was the same, but Sage was not. She was a different creature, knowledge that she didn't have--that she wasn't sure if she wanted--forced into her like it was a formula she was created with.
The Volturi. Masika. Sam and Seth and everyone here. Elis's betrayal. His constant need to ruin everything, to break pieces that Sage had to continue putting back together even if it meant her hands were torn and bloody. while his own skin was clean.
Returning home to that, to the knowledge that Aro had allowed her to read the letter even though he knew that it would be the final crack that would break her heart, was the worst part. She was scared of Aro, but she loved him. She thought he loved her as well, and perhaps he did, in his own way, but it felt like poison in her veins when he demanded that she understand--that she knew--who was at fault.
Her.
In the end, it really was her fault. She could have just let the memory of her brother go. It would have been simple to allow him to pass through her like a wave on the shore, taking the grains of who she was with him and who he made her into with it. She should have let it go, became the person that Aro wanted her to be, but Sage clung onto the memories like she thought--
She rubbed a hand through her hair.
Like she thought that it would make her less of a monster. Like she could atone for the mistakes she made in her human life. Like it was her fault she had to sacrifice and sacrifice, over and over again. For Mother. For Father. For her brother, who she loved so dearly. Who was weak and tearful and never took responsibility.
If Sage was able to cry, tears would be streaming down her face. Her throat was closed, lungs stopped. There was a stone lodged in her throat. The discomfort was welcome even if the thoughts weren't.
Emmett and Jasper had their backs turned, but surely they could hear the pain in her thoughts, the strain of her emotions. She wished they would leave. She needed to be alone in her sadness, in her defeat.
She thought about Masika.
If Aro was confronting her, it meant that Sage's days were numbered. She did not know when he would find her, but if she knew anything about him it was that he liked to make a hasty, dramatic entrance. He would collect the facts, tell Masika a story that would certainly make her intervene, and they would arrive in Forks in a couple months if not weeks.
