Alice sat curled on the couch hours after the vision ended, wrapped in a blanket Esme had gotten though she didn't need the warmth.Her eyes were distant.Haunted.
She wasn't afraid of the Volturi.
She was afraid of him.
Jacob paced again — not violently, but anxiously — his body radiating heat, anger, and protective instinct.
"He told her not to look at him," Jacob muttered, jaw tight."Why would he say that? Unless he's—"
"Scared," I finished softly.
Carlisle closed another ancient book and pushed it aside, frustration lining his calm expression.
"There are no records of another hybrid," he said."None. Not in thousands of years."
"That's the point," Edward said darkly."He wasn't born. He was made."
Bella's voice was soft but firm.
"And they made him like they made the guard. Obedient. Or at least… they tried."
Alice shuddered.
"No. Not obedient. Conditioned. Hurt. I felt it. His mind is… fractured. Like he's in two places at once — the present and the future, but not by choice."
Carlisle's eyes softened with something close to sorrow.
"Experimentation."
Esme covered her mouth, horrified.
"A child," she whispered."A hybrid child."
Alice squeezed her eyes shut.
"He wasn't older than me when I met you all," she said quietly."I think… I think they made him young on purpose. Easier to control."
Edward's jaw tightened.
"And yet he broke through your vision. Not intentionally — his power overflowed."
Jacob stopped pacing, turning to face us.
"So he's dangerous."
Carlisle nodded slowly.
"Dangerous because he's suffering. Because he's unstable. Because he's being pushed far beyond what his mind can handle."
My chest felt tight.
"What can he do?"
Alice wrapped her arms around herself.
"I couldn't see clearly. But it's mental. Deeply mental. Psychic in ways I don't understand."
Edward added carefully:
"He touched her vision, Ness. He reached into an ability he doesn't even know exists. Pure instinct."
Jacob muttered, "That's not good."
"No," Edward agreed quietly. "It's not."
Leo sat beside me on the floor, unusually quiet.
"They're using him to find us," he said softly.
Esme shook her head quickly.
"They don't know where we are."
But Alice whispered:
"They might. His projection… it felt like he brushed against something. A thread."
Edward finished grimly:
"A thread that leads here."
Jacob growled, the sound deep and warning.
"So what now?"
Carlisle leaned back, thoughtful but clearly unsettled.
"We prepare. We observe. But we do not provoke them. If Lucian is being used, then the true monster is not the child."
Bella nodded firmly.
"We protect him too, if… if it comes to that."
Jacob blinked, taken aback.
"You want to save him?"
Bella looked at him with the same soft steel she'd used when she defended me my entire childhood.
"He didn't choose this."
Alice whispered, voice trembling:
"He didn't want me looking because he didn't want to hurt me."
The room fell silent at that.
Soft.Quiet.Heavy.
Not fear —grief.
Because Lucian wasn't our enemy.
He was their prisoner.
And somewhere, deep beneath layers of manipulation, conditioning, and psychic chaos…
a scared hybrid child had whispered into a future he didn't understand:
"Don't look at me."
Not as a threat.
As a warning.
A plea.
A cry for help.
And we all knew:
The Volturi weren't coming for us.
They were sending him.