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THERE ARE FEW TIMES WHERE ARO HAS A LACK OF EVIDENCE AGAINST HIS ENEMIES.
He has proved himself as a good leader by this very fact. Each time someone was brought to trial, a mass of memory evidence from the person being tried as well as their family members and friends. These memories being siphoned from Aro made sure that the government did not have vampires committing crimes under their nose.
Someone always knew something.
"May I touch your hand for just a second in order to gain your memory profile?" Aro asked, trying to be respectful as possible. He didn't want to see the horrors, but he had to tough through his complicated feelings on this matter in order to continue the Volturi's justice that flowed through his hands. "It would only be a second, and I will instantly pull away."
The woman was quiet for a short moment before she looked over to Rosalie, who nodded.
"Aro's gift is to see people's memories. You won't witness them over again, but he will. He can't do it without a light touch," Rosalie explained to her newly turned Covenmate. "Without a touch, you'll have to remember so Edward can see it that way. Both have their pros and cons."
"I don't want to remember," she said quietly, holding out her hands in front of her.
When Aro's hand met hers, he hated what he saw.
There was very little left of this woman's memory. Things were in bits and pieces, and many faces had been blurred out by an outside force. The tall man that River had described to Carlisle was the same one. Edward had seen this blurred out face. Aro had assumed that it was trauma, that River's brain couldn't handle remembering the face of her abuser.
He was wrong. Everyone was wrong.
This blur was a gift. This ability to delete and slightly shift memories just so... it terrified the Volturi King. Never before had his evidence, the core memories and much more gained from his gift, been tampered with.
Aro did as he said he would, having pulled back immediately after touching this young woman. There was nothing here, nothing of use. No names, no other human victims, only memories that had been kept to keep this human sane within the never ending loop of torturous removal of memory.
She knew that she was a slave, that there was no escape. She knew that she wasn't good enough. She knew that this man hated her crying. She remembered that she was never, ever going to be what he wanted.
There were fragments that this woman had that gave him just enough to know that he would be getting nowhere. A deep sense of dread and despair led in these parts of her memory. He hated it, he wanted out. Now that he was in... he would never forget this. These blurred faces all around him that could have been bodies, could have been humans still alive. There was static here, within the sea of blurred faces.
Was this what his mate had lived through, or was she able to get out less traumatized because this was what he wanted. She was what he wanted.
It made him sick. It made him want to sprint back to Volterra and lock her away. He wanted to protect her in whatever way he could purely because this man had evaded him.
