Disclaimer: I am not Stephenie Meyer, just amusing myself with her characters.

/\/

Chapter One: Lightning Strikes

Am I part of the cure – or am I part of the disease? (Coldplay)

Renesmee's POV

Strange, I thought as I took in the emerald forests that stretched as far as the eye could see, to be attached this much to a place I had hardly ever been to. The place of my birth.

/\/

The first thing Nahuel said when my parents learned that they had to return to the North was: "You can stay here as long as you want, Renesmee."

I froze. My parents would leave the decision to me, I knew that. They were returning to their war after all, to battles from which they were bent on keeping me. It surely would be best for everybody if I just stayed here as Nahuel wanted me to.

He cared about me. This place made me happy. I thought of the green cathedral that was the Amazonas forest, of the thousands of bird voices filling the air, of the warm rain pearling off my skin, of the mosquitos' humming irritation when they realized they wouldn't get any blood out of me… But I was a refugee here. My home was up there in the North and I longed for it, for the mist, the snow and the scent of pine resin. I was attached to my birthplace in a way I couldn't even begin to fathom. The answer I gave to Nahuel surprised me myself, though.

"This is not my forest."

Twenty-four hours later, we boarded a plane to the United States at the airport of Brasilia. Our stay in the Amazonas had been a pleasant interlude. I could almost watch the familiar weight settle between my father's shoulders. His thoughts were on Denali already, where our allies were in danger, waiting for help. It was my mother who gave me last instructions for the time I was going to spend at Forks without them.

"Please use the guestroom in grandfather's house. And don't forget to close your window at night." I sighed into her shoulder and nodded. "And always watch out for yourself when you go exploring the forest. It's probably better if you don't visit the clearing while we're gone –"

"Momma, we've been through this already," I lifted my head to look at her. Loving golden eyes gazed back at me from a face as perfect as the finest porcelain. Over my mother's shoulder, I watched my father wink at me.

I'm sure many children feel this way about their parents, but to me they simply were the most beautiful people I had ever seen: my mother with her delicate features and translucent skin surrounded by a cloud of dark hair; my father with his gentle smile, lanky frame and ever-tousled bronze hair.

It was my biggest hope in life to measure up to the examples of courage and devotion they had set for me.

Theirs was a romance famous by now all over the vampire community on at least two continents – the mortal girl and the vampire who fell in love and fought for it against all oppositions. There weren't a lot of individuals, however, who knew of my existence.

Sliding the balcony doors open, I briefly caught my reflection in the glass: long slender legs in cutoff blue jeans, wavy, bronze-colored hair falling on my shoulders, a black sleeveless top under a thin grey cardigan. By just looking at me no one would have guessed that I had been in this world for only eight years.

Those "growth spurts" of mine were the reason why I had never attended Forks High School, but had been homeschooled instead. I used to have vivid day dreams, though, based on what my mother had told me about high school life. Especially the idea of a school band had got stuck in my head. I loved to sing and make music. My father had taught me how to read notes and play the piano. I even went as far as to write lyrics for self-composed songs that nobody outside this family would ever hear.

I stepped onto the balcony and leaned against the balustrade as the black Volvo my father drove disappeared down the road and from my view. The wind blowing from the sea tousled the already unruly hair I had inherited from my father. Thinking about how he wouldn't be here tonight to play the piano with me four-handed made me sad. It was the first time I would be separated from my parents for longer than a couple of days and nights. I understood why it was necessary for them to go and align with our allies, though. They would have done the same for us.

My gaze wandered over the tops of the trees surrounding our estate towards the coastline faraway in the distance. I startled when I realized I was looking towards La Push.

At home, the blame or main responsibility for this war and all the tragedies it had brought into our lives was connected with one name first and foremost: Jacob Black.

The alpha male of the La Push pack – equipped with the fastest reflexes of them all and a heart as sinister and unfathomable as his surname suggested, according to my father. Just thinking about this archenemy of ours made me wrap my arms around myself out there on the balcony as the wind pulled at my hair.

In a way, this man was responsible for my lost childhood, our home being protected like a citadel and the mourning my family was in. Prior to my birth, there used to be a treaty between our kind and theirs. We wouldn't come on their land, they weren't allowed on ours. Open war broke out the day I was born, I had been told.

It had claimed both of my uncles and my aunt Rosalie as well as my human grandfather Charlie Swan… On the other side, there had been casualties, too – Black's own father among them. With more and more blood being shed all hope vanished of ever resolving this conflict, my mother had explained to me. She had tried her best, my grandparents let me know, intervening personally but to no avail.

But there was more to it, I had always figured. My parents seemed to know Jacob Black better than they let on most of the time. Little things slipped, though, murmurs in our silent house when they believed me to be asleep.

Growing older, one thing became clear to me: my mother blamed herself for this war.

/\/

The first heavy drops of rain hitting the sand in the driveway to our house…I loved the way the air smelled right now: a long hot day nearing its end, the tension that had been in the air all day finding release in a thunderstorm. I'd had my share of tempests in the Amazonas, but those didn't compare to what was in the air right now.

There was no way I could stay inside on an evening like this.

I intended to keep my promise, though. I wouldn't go to the clearing, although I remembered the way there perfectly fine from the last time my parents had taken me there. And of course, I wouldn't go anywhere near the no-man's-land between the Quileute's territory and ours.

"Renesmee?" my grandmother's voice stopped me as I headed for the door. I suppressed a smile and stepped into the living room. "Were you planning on going out?"

"I just want to take a stroll…"

"In the mid of a tempest?" I could hear the smile in her voice. Until perhaps a couple of years ago, I had rarely been out completely on my own. But my love for stormy weather was well-known among the rest of my family.

I walked over to the sofa where my grandmother sat reading. When I leaned over her shoulder and wrapped my arms around her, she patted my arm. "Steer clear of the wolves' paths, will you?"

I nodded, but we both knew she needn't have to remind me. I had never participated in any of the battles. Compared to humans I was strong, invincible nearly. But I lived among vampires at war with shape-shifters. My family made sure that I stayed out of harm's way by staying out of the shape-shifters' way. As a result, I had never seen any of the Quileute up close.

I had heard their music, though, on clear nights when the air carried the sound of their voices and their ancient instruments to our cottage, to the open window I was sitting in.

It was incredible at such nights that the faceless murderers of my family were able to produce such a sound. If the deaths of my loved ones hadn't told me better, I would have doubted that there was evil in them at all.

/\/

I was about thirty miles from home when I heard the scream. It literally made the hairs at the back of my neck raise. I was on my way towards the source of that pain-filled noise before I knew what I was doing.

It was a reflex I couldn't help – too often had I seen my parents rush to the aid of an injured friend or ally, putting their own well-being aside. I caught the faint smell of a congener, one of the mercenaries perhaps. That stopped me for moment.

We weren't alone on this territory we called "ours" and many of them were just as hostile towards the idea of a hybrid like me as the most ardent of our wolf enemies. But the fact that I couldn't assign what I smelled to somebody I knew didn't mean that it didn't belong to an ally. And they could be in danger somehow from the real enemy.

I broke into a run. The wind had freshened up, carrying more of the unknown vampire's scent as well as the odor of the sea. There was something else there, something I had scented a couple of times before. Something woody and tangy, that blended in with the surrounding forest but only just so.

The smell of a werewolf.

It was sharp and clear to detect, growing stronger as I speeded along beneath the trees. In fact, it overpowered everything else as I came closer to the source – the trees, the earth, the rain storm drawing closer and the vampire scent I had taken up earlier.

It still came as a bit of a shock when I saw him.

Even if I hadn't recognized the smell, his dark reddish skin, ebony hair and high cheekbones would have helped me identify him as La Push folk. It was unusual for them to come this close to our home on their patrols, even though this was still no man's land, belonging to neither side of the conflict. This one had been on his own when he was attacked it seemed.

And now he would die here, struck by the venom of a nameless vampire.

He was young, I thought as I slowly closed in on him although it had always been difficult for me to estimate the age of humans, in his mid-twenties perhaps. He was stark naked, having obviously just phased back into his human form. Where his shoulder joined his neck, I could see the bite wound.

He didn't open his eyes as I stepped closer. Still all of my senses were on the alert in case he would do so. I knew I was no match for the likes of him. I'd been told time and again about the havoc werewolves could wreck in combat. Even in his human form, he looked a fighter.

Even much later, I've never been able to make up my mind about what moved me to act as I did. Maybe it was the fact that I had never seen one of them up close or my less-developed sense of smell was to blame that didn't suggest to me the foreignness – or even repulsiveness – of these creatures as thoroughly as it would have to any other vampire.

Or maybe it was the stubborn bravery with which he fought against letting escape even the smallest sound of pain. Only his labored breath and the tension in his whole body betrayed his agony.

In any case, there was something there and that something drove me to reach out to him, to lift my hand to his cheek.

It will be all right, I said in his mind. Hold on.

And I showed him what I intended to do. He cursed horribly in reply.

It was a mystery to me why I felt this immense relief when his eye-lids were starting to flutter. My breath caught in my lungs as I was met with a gaze deep and dark as deadly nightshade.

I had no doubt that he was in great pain, but for a moment there was something else in his eyes. Astonishment, wonder – I didn't know what and I wasn't sure he saw me at all. What could it be that went through his fascinated him so? He became completely still, a strange calmness seemed to settle over him.

Silently cursing myself for sitting there like a deer in the headlights of a car, staring at him, I set myself to work. Careful not to hurt him more than necessary, I put my moth to the open wound.

Shock ran through his body, a cry catching in his throat, but the poison had weakened him too much by then already to fight me off.

He tasted different from anything I had ever tried.

Having grown up on a diet of blood donations brought home by my grandfather from the hospital where he worked I would have recognized it as human blood any time. But while the conserved blood usually held a strong note of iron, a mineral kind of savor, his blood had an earthy taste to it, but it also seemed to hold a note of rain and pine resin…

And there was our own taste, of course: The venom from the vampire's bite.

I spit a mouthful of it to the ground and immediately set my lips back to where they had been, drawing more of the earth-and-conifer-savor. I started to feel a bit light-headed. This was something my parents and grandparents had often spoken to me about: how human blood could ensnare our senses to the point that we forgot where we were.

Mustering all my strength, I broke away from him, throwing my head back as I tried to catch my breath. It should have been easier for me, I thought as I pressed the palm of my hand to my bloodstained mouth, to disregard the siren call of human blood, but it wasn't. The vampire part of me was strong, after all.

His breath was shallow. He was weakened already and I had taken more of his blood than he could spare right now. Almost apologetic, I ran a hand over his naked shoulder.

Heat.

My hands sought it out without paying attention to what I was doing. Humans sometimes ran a fever when they were injured or poisoned, I was told, but this was different. My fingertips were gliding over the silky texture of his skin with a downright unhealthy fascination.

The strength of the muscles and the softness of the skin. It was delicious unlike anything else I had ever touched. Running my fingers over his chest, I looked up and was startled to see him stare back at me. I withdrew my hand, suddenly realizing how obtrusive the touch was.

I cursed myself inwardly. How could I get lost like this when he was suffering? Sucking the venom out of him wasn't near enough to make sure he would be alright. He needed rest. Food and water probably too. A warm place where he could sleep. I frowned. They slept, werewolves, didn't they?

The best thing would be if I could take him to one of the cabins out here that were frequented by hikers in the summer time. They had cots and fireplaces, for all I knew. He could rest there. But this meant I had to move him.

For my father or mother, this would have been no problem at all. Any vampire would be strong enough to carry a human – but I was just a measly half-blood. Apart from speaking my thoughts to people when I touched their faces, I didn't possess any great abilities.

I flung my arms around him and carefully lifted his upper body off the ground. This draw a painful moan from his throat. I pressed my eyes closed in sympathy.

I whispered into his mind, Please, help me here… I'm trying to take you to safety.

He moved his head as if trying to shake it, but couldn't complete the motion. It came to rest on my shoulder, instead, with his scalp against my cheek. Drawing a deep breath, I tightened my hold on him and got up from the ground, taking him up with me.

/\/

I had hoped beyond hopes that I remembered correctly where to find the nearest one – or at least one of them. It had been years since I'd been out here, so while in retrospect I was sure I didn't take the shortest route, I found one eventually.

For my companion it had been a torture, no doubt. He lay deadly still on his cot, his breath very shallow. I had found him a couple of blankets that I smoothed over his large frame, but there was so desperately little I could do for him. I had done my best by removing the poison from his body and he was going to sleep now, but there was no guarantee that he would see the sun rise tomorrow.

I couldn't say why the thought of him perishing filled me with despair, but I was losing my composure over it. I ran my hands through my hair in exasperation. I wasn't up to this. My trying to help him was likely to have caused him even more harm. I needed my grandfather to help me with this.

But such a thing was completely out of the question. How could I approach Carlisle who had lost three children to this war and ask him to come to the aid of an enemy? Of one who for all I knew could be responsible for their deaths?

I looked at my hands, the hands which had carried a mortal enemy into sanctuary. How could I?

/\/

Fifteen minutes to midnight I was racing across the lawn of our estate.

Thirteen minutes to midnight, I nearly ripped of my clothes and left them crumbling on the bathroom floor, planning on handing them over to the washing machine later.

Seven minutes to midnight, I stepped from the shower quickly brushing water-drops of my skin and reached for my towel.

Six minutes to midnight, I ran to my room and pulled the first clothes I got my hands on from my wardrobe.

Three minutes to midnight, I ran up the stairs leading to the veranda of my grandparents' house, clad in blue jeans and a hoodie, smelling of nothing but vampire and grapefruit shampoo.

At least, I hoped so. The rest of my family's sense of smell was much keener than my own. I had learned this the hard way when I was younger and headed into Forks on my own. They could always tell when I'd been sneaking out from the scent I carried home with me.

"So glad you could make it," my grandfather gave me a loving smile as he looked up from the chessboard set up between him and my grandmother.

"Did you take a shower?" Esme asked slightly astonished, running a hand through my wet hair.

"Yes," I answered cheerfully. "I was looking like a stray cat when I came out of that forest."

Never before had I paid much attention to it, but now… With my skin still recalling the silky heat of the werewolf, her hand was like ice.

/\/

TBC