The Secret Lies With Charlotte

I’m so ashamed by everything that’s happened; everything that I’ve done. I’ve been wrestling with writing this blog for days now, worried that everyone will see me for what I really am. Will it do more harm than good? Or will I finally be able to tell my side of the story, and people will understand?

I’ve finally had the chance to go back and see how everyone reacted to my disappearance in Seattle. I’ve read about the search through Malakai’s journals, seen the pictures he and Wade took at the point where I was captured, and heard the story of how he, Marek, and Wade found me at the bottom of that cliff. At this point, I wish they’d never found me. I wish they had just left me there to face the demon of my past alone.

Because they found me, Cassian hatched a plot to capture them. Our powers are similar; we can both alter will in others. However, whereas I am limited to adjusting a current will, (the person already has to have a part of them that is inclined to do what I’m asking; I just adjust the volume on that desire), Cassian can create ideas and will from scratch as he sees fit. What he wanted was to capture Marek and Malakai and use them as pawns in his ongoing battle dancing on the border between Texas and Mexico.  He used me to lure Marek away, forced me to make him believe that I was in love with him, twisted me into leaving my husband, and dragged all three of us back to Louisiana. If Jasper, Peter, and Edward hadn’t finally put the pieces together and had come to do battle with Cassian, we’d probably be in Mexico by now.

I don’t know how to pick up the pieces and move on. Is it even possible to move on from what I’ve done? I’ve broken the heart and devastated one of my closest friends; someone I’ve looked to like a little brother.  I cheated on Peter with two men; neither was willing on my mental part, of course, but nonetheless. My actions caused Jasper to return to the territory he long ago left, putting him at risk, and causing his fragile willpower to falter.

At this point, all I want to do is stop moving. I just want to find a place that I can sit. I want the world to stop moving for half a minute just so my mind can stop spinning with all of this new information and I can process what I have. I’ve been told 100 times over that this wasn’t my fault, but here’s my dirty awful secret…all of this was. All of my battle training says never give up. Never give them what they want, no matter how they torture you. Better to die a silent hero than a vocal coward. I gave Cassian exactly what he wanted; control of me. With it, he used my friends and my family in the worst of ways. All of this happened because I couldn’t resist, and I let my faith in my husband and friends falter. I honestly believed that no one would come for me; no one would notice that I was missing. I’d become so used to solely being an attachment to my husband and the group that it wasn’t hard to imagine that my disappearance would go unnoticed.

Peter says that he’s forgiven me, but everytime I look into his eyes, I feel the guilt washing back over me. He’s agreed that we can settle down for awhile, as long as it can be somewhere near the ocean. I think we’re going to try New England for awhile. Reconnect. No matter what happened, there was a part of him that actually believed that I would cheat on him and leave him. It wasn’t an immediate red flag, which means that somewhere along the way, I let him down. Something I did caused his faith in me to falter. I guess it wasn’t too far of a stretch for my faith in him to break as well. We’ve been failing eachother for awhile, I suppose. It’s time to start over and see if we can mend our lives.

Maybe this settling down is exactly what we need to reconnect, and Peter will give me back my wedding ring finally. Then again, maybe we’ll discover what we both fear; that we really can’t go back to the way we were.

Logs

The Cassian Uprising Saga (Jasper, Peter, Charlotte, Malakai, and Marek) continues with Chapter 6, and the Lavender Saga (Mary, Wade, Lavender, Hayden) begins with Chapter 1!

Logs: The Cassian Uprising

Visiting from the Olympic Coven?

This blog has been designated as the Chronicler for the  Nomads in the BAMFN group. (Charlotte, Cassian, Malakai, Marek, Mary, Peter, Thanh, Tas, and Wade). Which makes sense, since everyone thinks that I’m the Nomadic Social Butterfly anyway.

Been watching what’s going on in the south and missed a step? Tired of bouncing back and forth between twitter pages to catch up? You can read logs of the important events right here. Currently, we’re in The Cassian Uprising. This isn’t everthing that’s been written, but it’s the important elements of the story.

30,00 feet and holding

Las Vegas.
City of Sin.
City that comes to life when the sun goes down.

You’d think that I’d be more at home here than anywhere else. I’m surrounded by my husband and my closest friends, we wrangled our way into a really posh hotel at ridiculously low rates, and for the first time in years I put on clean clothes everyday and dancing shoes every night. Life is good.

So why am I feeling so restless?

I don’t like leaving business unfinished. A harsh necessity of nomadic life is cutting the strings and leaving no attachments in any place that you leave. You never know when you’re coming back, or if you ever will. Better to make a clean break and a soft farewell and face your new adventure with a smile. I don’t like leaving things unsettled. It keeps you looking backwards instead of looking forwards. Onwards and upwards, I always say.

I feel like we’re in a holding pattern in Las Vegas. We’re having fun, it’s true, but I also feel a little like we’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. I catch myself looking at my phone and feeling disappointed when there are no missed calls from anyone in a particular Washington State household. I’ve scrolled through the address book time and time again reviewing the ‘C’ section and trying to get up the guts to make the call. The truth is, I don’t even know what I’d say if I ever did press send. I can’t see that conversation ending well for any of us.

I want to call and warn Jasper that Cassian’s still out there, and knows where he is, but the fact is, Jasper already knows. That situation hasn’t changed. Cassian may have disappeared for years, but he was always out there and always a threat. The last time he found Jasper, he was in Forks. That bit of intel hasn’t changed either. Really, there’s nothing new to report. I think I only want to call just to hear his voice, just to have some resolution. I won’t find it. I may be optimistic at times, but even I know that this one is a foolish hope.

I’ve got to get out and get some air. Maybe I’ll check in and see what Malakai is doing.

Siren

Know, know too well.
Know the chill.
Know she breaks
my Siren.
No teenage flesh.
Know that she’ll
know she breaks
my Siren.

Siren-Tori Amos

I’ve been fighting with this blog for days. Everything that I’ve been feeling seems wrong somehow, and putting it in writing just makes it all seem that much worse. It makes everything real.

Peter came back to me. It’s ironic, only a few hours before he reappeared, I’d been confessing my darkest secret to Mary; that I was angry with Peter for leaving me. I know it’s irrational, he had no way of knowing what would happen while he was gone, and he has no obligation to protect me anyway. There’s no guarantee that Cassian wouldn’t have come back, even if Peter had stayed. I know the logic of the situation, but it didn’t matter. When he came walking back up the street, acting as if nothing had happened, I was livid. I even slapped him; the first time in 59 years of marriage that I’ve ever laid hands on my husband in anger. To his credit, he took it. He took every ounce of anger I had, and when it all faded to fear and grief, he took that, too, wrapping his arms around me and promising not to let go.

I can’t seem to make my head quit spinning. We’re  here in Las Vegas, in the city of sin and nightlife, and spent the afternoon and better part of the evening in the jacuzzi bathtub with my SkullCandy earbuds in. I can’t seem to find any peace. Peter does his part to try to help; night before last he lay his hands on me and used his gift to lull me into a restful state. I would call it sleeping, but it’s not. Just…like floating on a cloud with my eyes closed, all of my limbs relaxing and my mind spinning into that wonderful state halfway into your subconscious where thoughts get tangled and don’t make sense. My sanctuary. My Peter. I want him to hold me all the time. I need him next to me, touching me, gripping my hand, brushing hair out of my eyes. Even if he’s not using his gift, I’m craving the assurances that he’s still here with me. That he understands that I’m crazy, and terrified, and that he loves me anyway.

I meditated tonight, just in an effort to slow things down in my head. It worked, somewhat. For some reason, my Massive Attack playlist just washes over me in waves and can push worry and doubt away. Then I wake up from that state and I remember that we’re running again. Trying to slip underneath the radar and stay out of sight. Again. Knowing that my name is on the list. I know where he’s going next. I know what his next move will be. I can’t tell anyone what I know, I have to keep it hidden. Even from my husband.

I’m surrounded by the only people in my life that matter anymore. Some are old friends, and some I’ve only just met. This is my world now, and I have to grab onto it with both hands. I have to put back the pieces of our lives and move on. These people and this place? The only things that are worth protecting. I can’t do anything about what’s coming next. None of us can. All we can do is let it go and try to minimize the fallout in our own world.

I think I’m going to go take another bath.

The Search for Charlotte – My side

Three nights ago, I was sitting on the ground after having taken a run to clear my head. At the time, I didn’t know where I was, but I took off my backpack, rested it against a tree, and put my head in my hands. It was the first time that I’d been alone since we’d left Jasper and Peter had, in turn, left me. Being at the club that night with Marek, Malakai, and our new friend Wade had been an excersize in putting up a strong front, and I just couldn’t do it any longer. All the weight and grief that had been building for so long completely came crashing down. I did something I never should have done. I let my guard down.

I didn’t hear them sneaking up behind me. First rule of the south is you do not get caught. I did. Two of them sneaked up from behind me, one of them put his hands on me, and I dropped. It wasn’t like Peter’s power at all. When Peter touches me in order to help me rest, it comes on in slow waves, gradually increasing. This was like having an atom bomb touch me. I was out.

When I opened my eyes, Cassian stood in front of me. Immediately, my guard was up and I scrambled backwards, demanding what it was that he wanted. He didn’t answer for the longest time, instead crouching on the ground in front of me, completely uncharacteristic of the man I rememberd. When he spoke, his voice was soft. Calming. He spoke of the battle he’d faced when he returned to Texas. He talked about his lack of preparation, and how his newborns weren’t properly trained, and how his gifted vampires were completely unprepared for the rigors of war. He told me that he was starting over from scratch and only recruiting the veterans this time; those of us who had served our time in war and knew the violence of battle. He promised that it would be different this time. He promised that I could stand at his side and control half of his troops so he didn’t have to do it all. We would stand out of the storm, ruling the coven as partners. He promised me the world.

We both knew that he was lying through his teeth. Cassian could never share glory, and partnership was a foreign language to an egotist such as him.  I could never return to that life; it already haunted my waking nightmares, effecting every aspect of my life. I could never dream of leaving Peter, leaving my life, giving everything up for a warzone. I turned him down flat.

It was in that moment that he turned on me. It was as if a switch had been flipped and he erupted, encapsulating every ounce of the strength and rage I’d remembered. It seemed like he tortured me for months, breaking and twisting, trying to convince me to relent. There were moments when the pain was so overwhelming… I guess he got frustrated when none of his old tricks worked, and he dragged me by my hair up the edge of the mountain. He leaned close and whispered in my ear, telling me that he’d be back when I’d suffered long enough to see things his side of things. After he’d broken nearly every bone in my body, he threw me off the edge of the cliff. At that point, I was so far gone, I didn’t even remember hitting the ground.

I don’t know if Cassian’s come back yet and discovered that I’m not where he left me. He probably assumes that it didn’t matter, I wouldn’t get very far with broken bones. I wonder if he’s tracking me right now, following my scent back to Seattle. I wonder how much time I have before he finds me again. A part of me hopes that he’d give up and move on to another vampire; there are so many to recruit, and in the end I’m a very small fish in that big pond. But the other part of me knows that he doesn’t like hearing no.

All I want to do is run. Malakai is determinded to track him back and fight with him, but we both know that has no chance of ending well. We’re surrounded by friends who have never seen war, and it would take no time at all for him to finish them. Malakai and I would likely survive, if only because Cassian wouldn’t kill two potential recruits.

But I will not watch my friends get destroyed over a battle they had no part in.

Some things never change…

I’m sitting on the rooftop of our friend’s apartment in Seattle, watching the sun creep over the horizon and cast its rays over the awakening city. Down below I can hear the conversations starting; couples waking up, asking eachother who remembered to feed the cat or take the garbage out, car engines startle in the cold before turning over, Marek and Thanh are chatting about educational systems in poor communities…all around me, the world is moving on. That’s the one thing that never ceased to amaze me. No matter what has happened to tear your life apart, the world will go on as if nothing has happened. It’s one of the consistencies in my world.

There are a few other constencies that I’ve discovered over the years.

1. My name is Sarah-Charlotte Devereaux. There has never been a single moment in my life that I have been anyone else. I’ve never carried anyone else’s last name, and I have never changed my own. No matter what happens, I am always going to be me. Nothing can ever change that.
2. The people that love you don’t always show it in the best ways. In moments of strife, someone you least expect will go running towards the door. Blaming them for it is like blaming the thunder for the rain; they go hand in hand, and there is no separating them. It’s just the way it is. But here’s the thing; I’ve usually discovered that someone else is running in at the same time. You just have to know where to look.
3. There will always be monsters lurking in the shadows and chasing you through the darkness. When I was a child, it was the bastard banker in New Orleans who blackmailed my family for years and all but stole our home, sending us running for safety in the middle of the night. When I changed, the demons outnumbered my companions. We spent our days and nights waiting for the moment a rival army sprang from the desert to attack. Fleeing the south meant always looking over my shoulder and wondering when Maria and Jasper would send the troops after us. For the past several years, my monster has had a name: Cassian.

When I was in the southern armies, Cassian existed as a rumor; a terrifying urban legend. It’s impossible to separate the truth from the myth with that man, but I’ll tell you what I know.

No one is really certain how long Cassian has been a vampire.  The people who have come close to him and survived say that every so often, he will mutter something about  ”Iron Clad” and “Regulators”, which indicates that he may have been a part of the infamous posses during his human years.

He appeared in the Southern Covens sometime in the mid to late 1800s as the second in command for Alexander (Alejandro) Dias, whose territory stretched across much of the southern tip of Texas and crept into Mexico.  For decades he led the Dias troops in battle, squaring off against Maria Vasquez on multiple occasions. His training methods are relentless and ruthless; Dias held so large a territory because his soldiers were highly skilled. Cassian was known for killing his newborns for the smallest mistake; even the minute errors on the battlefield were unforgivable. He’d recruit throughout Texas, setting up training camps in every part of unclaimed wilderness and drawing from them when he needed replacements for his frontlines.

Cassian also is dangerously gifted. He needs only to come into close proximity to a human or vampire, and he can control their every move with a passing thought. Unlike my gift, he doesn’t manipulate will, he steals it. It’s a useful skill in the coven wars, essentially he can stand back on the battlefield and manipulate his soldiers without having to say a word. Cassian sees anyone under his control as a shell of themselves; just chess pieces to move around on the board for his own purposes.

No one is really certain what happened, but Cassian and Dias parted ways badly. Some say that Cassian has grown tired of playing second fiddle. Dias has grown lazy in his successes, and never sees a battlefield, preferring his soldiers fight to keep him in his position of comfort. The territory is Dias’ only due to Cassian’s successes, and both vampires know this. Wanting to establish his own territory and return to Texas to reclaim ‘his’ land from Dias, Cassian has moved northward to recruit. This isn’t the first time he’s done this. Several years ago, he captured Malakai, Jasper, and myself looking to force us back into wars we’d long since left behind. Though we escaped him then, I always knew that someday, he would come back for me. And now he has.

I hear Mary calling me downstairs, I’ll be back

Honestly Okay

I just want to feel safe in my own skin
I just want to be happy again
I just want to feel deep in my own world
but I’m so lonely I don’t even want to be with myself anymore
On a different day if I was safe in my own skin
then I wouldn’t feel so lost and so frightened
But this is today and I’m lost in my own skin
And I’m so lonely I don’t even want to be with myself anymore

-Honestly OK, Dido-

I don’t have any more answers. Instead, I’ve just opened a whole new can of questions. The sun’s starting to come up, or it would be if I were anywhere other than the city that sunlight forgot. There’s just a dim glow on the horizon. The city is beginning to come alive all around me. Car engines are starting to hum, the din of voices is beginning to rise out of the public market as the people unload their produce, the crush of air brakes from the metro system echoes through the streets. The city is beginning to come to life…and strange as it seems, so am I.

I feel like I just shed my cloak of invisibility or awakened to a reality from a screaming nightmare.

I spent the night in the underground with Malakai, Marek, and Wade. It was strange, talking to someone who had absolutely no idea of the hell my life has become. Someone who doesn’t look at me as the walking tragedy that I am. Malakai hasn’t taken his eyes of me in days, and he’s always gazing at me with concern, waiting for me to fall apart. Marek is more subtle, but he still looks at me as though I’m a porcelain shell about to crumble before his eyes. It was nice to have someone see me as ME.

Like I said. Whole new can of questions.

Rule #4 in Charlotte’s Guide…

I know whomever reads this is going to think I’m absolutely crazy. And they’re probably right.

 I just can’t shake this feeling that the worst isn’t over. There’s something else just lurking on the horizon that’s going to throw my world off its axis once again.  There are only three things that could completely alter my existence right now, 1) losing Peter 2) the reemergence of anyone from the southern covens and 3) losing Malakai or Marek. I’m living in fear.

Whenever I can, I cling to Peter, in as much as the prying eyes of our friends will allow. I have to hold his hand, grip onto the tail of his shirt, wrap his arms around my shoulders. I have to grip him physically, as if somehow my touch will keep him here at my side instead of wherever he’s wandering in his mind. He’s doing well at keeping his mask in place, but I see the cracks beginning to show. Sometimes, I’ll look over and see an expression of sheer agony on his face. I’ll reach out and grip his hand, our eyes meeting for a moment, crimson gaze meeting crimson gaze. He’ll hold it, matching my stare for a brief moment, letting me in, and then the mask resurfaces, and he’s gone again.

 I don’t know what I would do if I lost him. He swears that he’d never leave, even though we both know that’s not the case. In the past, I’ve dreaded the day that Maria resurfaced and asserted her claim on Jasper. If Jasper were to return to the south, I knew in my heart of hearts that Peter would follow after him. He always said he never wanted to choose between Jasper and me, but the fact is…I knew where his decision would fall. The rumors coming out of the other nomads are that the rules changed when I left the game; no more female newborns are allowed in her army. We’re more trouble than we’re worth. I suppose it’s true. But I always knew that I would follow Peter and probably be killed for my efforts. It sounds morbid, but I could never envision a life for me apart from Peter.

 Maybe that’s a problem.

 From the moment I left the south, I ceased to be Charlotte and became CharlotteandPeter. After awhile, I became CharlotteandPeterandJasper. Now, we’re back to CharlotteandPeter. It’s absolutely haunting me how quickly that could change. I don’t even remember how to be Charlotte. He swears he could never leave me. But he swore that oath to Jasper, too, and now we’ve both parted with those once strong ties.

 I don’t want to be one of those women who pathetically cries and beats her hand against her chest when her man leaves her. I don’t want to be incapable of standing on my own, and taking care of my own business. I don’t like that suddenly, I’m purely defined by a man, and I’m petrified that when he leaves, this world that I’ve tried so hard to build will completely fall apart.  I can’t be the damsel-in-distress, I’m-fainting-won’t-you-catch-me type. If this world and recent events have taught me anything, it’s that sooner or later, no one will be around to catch you fall.

So what do I do? Rule number 4 in Charlotte’s Guide To Nomadic Life (are you taking notes, Thanh?)- Keep only a few close ties, keep them close, keep your enemies closer, and by all means, watch your back. You never know when someone you trust can rip your world out from under you.

 +Charlotte+

At the turn of the tide…

I dig my heels into the dirt
‘Cause this one’s gonna hurt
Won’t let the waves wash me away
Is what I always pray
In my heart I know you couldn’t see
In the dark or find your way through me
Now I’m alone, my hands are numb
How do I carry on?At the turn of the tide
I feel this part of me die
Am I washed on your shore and barely alive?

-Charlotte Martin-

I’m sitting on the shoreline, staring into the mad chaos of the waves as they come crash onto the shoreline. Beneath them, sand is ripping away from the shore, being broken into fine grains of dust. Shells are crushing under their massive weight, leaving sea creatures stranded and homeless. Fragments of past lives are washing up on the beach, – someone’s dirty laundry, a broken bottle, sopping paper that may have once held a love letter. The waves have so much power, and cast so much destruction, and still they’re the prettiest thing I’ve seen in ages.

The boys are off hunting, and I am alone. Feeling oh, so very alone.

+Charlotte+