The Hunter
Summary: Amanda Post lead a normal life... until vampires killed her parents. Now she's a hunter, armed with a mysterious weapon, and when she hears about a seven vampire clan in Forks, what will happen? More importantly, who sent her on this mission? Someone knows the Cullen's secret. BxE, set post- NM, pre-Eclipse
Disclaimer: I only own Amanda! Stephenie owns the rest. And the Cullens are in the story, we just haven't met them yet.
Amanda Post was not really a brave person. She cringed when she saw spiders and was deathly afraid of the dark. There was, of course, a reason for this. Eight years ago, Amanda was ten years old. She was taking a shopping trip with her parents at Christmastime. She quite clearly remembers that she had bought her mother a new pair of brown gloves, and her painfully practical father a battery charger, which is what he had asked for. That and closet hangers. Anyways, she and her parents had been admiring the beach from the boardwalk of their oceanside town. It was not the most attractive ocean, as they lived in Oregon, and it was wet, grey, and rather dismal most of the time. Yet, there was still an attractive quality to the churning unsettled nature of the waves as they rose, gathering volume as they came closer to the shore, but collapsing in on themselves as the weight became too much to bear. The clouds had parted, it seems, just for that night- you could pick out even the most difficult constellations among the stellae. Amanda especially remembered that she had pointed out Cassiopeia- her mother's favorite.
There wasn't much about the night that seemed really remarkable- in fact one of the only memorable things about it was the fact that it was the last happy moment in her life. Eating gratuitous amounts of ice cream straight from the Ben and Jerry's carton, they were headed back t car so that they could drive home. That's when Amanda first saw... it. Prowling the shore, so it seemed, was a dark haired young man with pale skin that reflected the moonlight with brilliance. Her parents immediately stiffened. The scene that followed was at once unbearably long and painfully quick- in that period, Amanda's life changed forever.
Her mother and father exchanged a dark look- a brief nod passed and her father went sprinting for the car, sweeping her into his arms and sprinting from the area. Her mother had withdrawn a large ivory colored knife- and proceeded to battle the unexpected threat. But he was quick, his movements simply blurs. But Valerie Post wasn't going to give up easily. She dug her weapon deep into his side, hacking out chunks of pale skin, and there was no bleeding. But then- the monster realized what had happened. He was not used to physical pain- you could see that. He struck out with more force- he hadn't had much faith in his opponent until now. Amanda was thrust into the old green Sedan, while her father ran to help his wife. Alan Post, as was insinuated, was a sprinter. He had been a star athlete in college, and he still retained much of his strength. He made it to the beachside brawl in incredible time, fueled by love and adrenaline- he dug a similar knife from his pocket, joining the fight. He sliced off numerous limbs in quick succession, all of which still writhed on the ground, but was still unable to reach his wife, fighting on the opposite side and having sustained a chest injury. Amanda's brain was simultaneously at a standstill and racing with ideas and theories. Her parents had suddenly become gruesome killers of a sub-human creature- and were now being killed themselves.
Valerie slumped to the ground as the creature wheeled on her, bringing her neck closer to his waiting mouth. She was bitte--- Amanda realized the truth of the situation. The thing was a vampire. And her parents had known that. Suddenly, the girl that was ten years old could take the situation no longer. She jumped out of the car, and ran towards the fight. She came upon the body of her mother, blood spattered and gnawed at the neck. Her father saw her figure behind him, and with his last action slashed off the creatures head. It lay, gasping on the ground.
The ghost of what might have been a smile fluttered across Alan's features, and he sank to the ground, clutching his chest. She knelt beside him, feeling the ess of blood and aromatic fluid of the vampire pool on the ground until it became deep enough to float a toy boat, if only for a second before it leveled out and started sinking into the ground. Amanda, in shock at how tremendously the world had shifted, the boundaries of normal and possible shifting and jumping to unimaginable distances. She touched a delicate finger to his forehead, and in response his eyes flipped open for one last time. He coughed- blood spraying. It got all over Amanda- she was past caring. He spoke- his last words of which the tone, inflection, and order would never be shaken in her mind's eye. Every aspect of the grisly day would be perfectly preserved in her thoughts. "Burn... pieces. Knife...you'll need it." with a last burst of energy, he gripped the knife from off the ground, pressing it from his cold dying hands into hers. "I wish- I told her... You should know..." But he wasn't able to finish his sentence. It was at that moment that his hand went slack in hers. She emotionlessly used the knife to cut the pieces of vampire into pieces, gathering them up and making a huge bonfire on the beach. An old lady would see it from her condo- phone the police. It was thought to be dog mauling- the ashes of the vampire had long since been scattered to the wind. Amanda was reported as missing. Missing, because she hadn't reported to the police, or anybody. After the fire had been made, she had turned away for home. Ten miles in the snow, clutching her shopping bags. Gloves for mom. A battery charger for dad.