Chapter One

A/N: This story is set in the middle of Twilight. Bella and Edward are still getting to know each other, she's just about to find out that he's a vampire, and there aren't any nomads...yet.

Disclaimer: Twilight does not belong to me. Only this story and the character "Trish/Corinne" does.

My eyes were glued to the map in total astonishment. It was a normal paper map of America. I thought that regular maps gave away much better information than those on the Internet. No, I wasn't against new technology – I was only stating my point. It irritated me that the automatic response for my love of old-fashioned things was a question whether I was against modern technology.

The map I was holding in my hands had more information than Google maps would have had. Such as the red circle around Washington, found on a map that I had stolen from a young, traveling couple.

Washington. I tried to shrug off the feeling of unease. Washington made sense in a strange way. It was not only snowy and dark this time of the year, it was also a known hiding place for vampires. Yes, vampires – I wasn't looking for an earring, if that was what you thought.

I didn't understand why Washington felt like an odd place for me to search. It didn't seem right... On the other hand, it was better than as if I had no idea where to start. It was a large city, but that didn't bother me. I knew that I could find anything I wanted anywhere. After all, I had been trained to do that.

It wasn't hard to find a nearby airport. There was a bus station next to the park I had been in. A bus, on its way to an airport, was just about to leave. Even though I didn't have a ticket, the male bus driver allowed me to travel on the bus.

My luck didn't surprise me. Before a man had changed me, I grew up with my grandmother. She had thought that my extreme luck was a bad omen. "You are too lucky for your own good, Trish." She reminded me of that every day until I eventually started to believe it.

Luck. It was a constant curse and blessing in my life.

The old bus was soon at the airport and I immediately walked over to a desk where a sign showed that I could buy tickets. This was a big airport (the biggest one in Italy), so there would be many planes leaving from here.

"Excuse me," I murmured to the old woman behind the counter. I heard how her heartbeats increased and she looked slightly frightened, as if she had been caught doing something she should not have done. I quickly, so quickly that she didn't notice, glanced behind her desk and saw that she had been staring at a photo of ... Her boyfriend? The male was wearing nothing but a pair of shorts and he looked like regular males did.

"Which is the earliest flight from this airport?" I asked her, keeping my tone light and friendly so I wouldn't scare her.

"There is a flight leaving in fifteen minutes to Tacoma in Washington. There are still tickets you can buy if you want to..." The female trailed off.

I had never been to Tacoma or anywhere near. However, if those were the clues that my power gave to me, I would gratefully accept them. Besides – it was always interesting to discover a new place. Tacoma sounded normal, though I was still not sure that Washington was the right place for me to search.

"I'll take it," I replied to the female who sold the tickets. She nodded and gave me a ticket, while she said the price. I gave her the money without complaining and waved at her before walking away. Money was not an issue for me. With savings from my former salary, I would be able to exist, "live", for two thousand years without being in need of earning money.

I decided to do what humans called 'freshen up' before I'd walk over to the gate the flight would go from. I slid through the door to the ladies room. Even though I didn't have to concentrate on not creating any unwanted attention (I was already an expert at that), I saw how a few people were starting to stare at me.

The stench that hit me in from the toilets was disgusting. It was urine mixed with sweat and old, dried blood. My sensitive ears heard, too loud, how females were doing their human needs in the small toilets... I did not particularly enjoy spending time in ladies room's, obviously.

I effectively made my way over to a long mirror on one of the walls. It was partly covered with dust and bacteria. Human eyes could not notice it, but mine did. Another proof of human inconvenience. I bent my head down and threw my dirt-blonde hair around until it turned into a mess. I liked the feeling of ruined curls under my fingers. It also was a great way to change my appearance so that no curious humans would think about the fact that I never changed.

I quickly put another pair of ugly, light brown contact lenses in my eyes. I did it too quickly for humans to notice, even though there weren't too many humans in the ladies room. I preferred green lenses; however, they made the humans notice me even more. The lenses I had put in a few hours ago had started to dissolve because of the venom in my eyes. The hard, blood red color had started to show behind the old lenses.

As a final step to my makeover, I tugged out my brown leather jacket from my black puma bag, which was the only bag I had brought. I pulled down my black leather jacket and pulled on the brown one. Perfect, I mumbled to myself. I was a big fan of leather jackets; not only because they were the only normal jackets allowed in my former job, but because they were both comfortable and cool.

I did not have any luggage to check in, which was lucky because I would probably be late to the boarding then. As I finished my make-over, I walked over to the small station called 'passport control'. Traveling by air had been something I did frequently in my previous job. I never used my real identity on my passport – still, no human had ever been able to tell that the identity wasn't real. I couldn't use my real name, because then I would be recognized sooner or later. Being recognized was not something I could afford.

This time I went by the name Corinne Tarloe. That name was not too odd, on the other hand it wasn't too common either. I never had had a hard time adjusting to new identities (even though I had a new one with every new occasion), so I would react the right way if somebody called me Corinne. I liked the name much more than I had liked my last name, Bethel.

Since I had no luggage to check in, I only had to endure passport control.

The queue was as slow and almost unbearable as always. Everything humans did was slow. While waiting, they were entertaining themselves with small talk about the weather and their destination. More than half of them were wining about their clothing, boyfriends, how hungry they were, and worst of all: How tired they were. Could they not bear to stand anything? They were such weak creatures!

I had not had much contact with humans in my job; so much of the things I saw now were a surprise to me. I had thought that they were... maybe not smarter, but at least tougher. Someone would've kicked my ass in less than five seconds if I had whined like they constantly seemed to be doing.

I noticed a clock on a wall, twenty feet away, and I stared at it instead, waiting for the queue to move forward. Four of the now thirteen humans in front of me took more than ten minutes to show their passports. Were they this slow by purpose? I shrugged and concentrated on the clock again, instead of trying to figure out the answer. Math was the most logistic thing I knew.

Then it was my turn to hand over my passport to the male behind the desk.

He gawked at me openly and made a slight gurgling noise. I wrinkled my nose at the expected reaction. I had to clench my fists to not to snarl at him. Get it over with.

"Corinne Tarloe?" He asked. It was obvious that he intended his voice to sound seductive. That didn't work out so well for him.

"Yes," I lied to him. "I'm Corinne Tarloe."

Before he shut my passport, he tried to discretely slide in his business card in it. He was hoping that I would call. When he would realize that I did not intend to do so, he'd go home to his girlfriend and kiss her as if this never had happened. I might not have too much experience with humans, but males were predictable.

He nodded, gave me back my passport and clumsily winked at me when I walked away without a second glance. His disappointment was obvious. Ugh, what a human.

I walked over to the gate I would leave from –Gate four, in the other side of the building- and walked in human pace to it. It annoyed me that I could not walk any quicker without drawing attention, but I was used to having to appear human. I knew that if I created any suspicion, The Volturi would not be happy with me. They were not allowed to kill me, of course, but I knew that some Volturi members wanted to.

When I arrived, I saw that the boarding had already begun. The queue to the boarding was ridiculously long – how unusual. I listened to the humans' small talk while I waited for my turn to board.
A couple was talking about their troubled teenage daughter; a man was muttering to himself that he should not have drunk that shot last night; and two friends were chatting about a hot actor. Only one conversation was about me.

"Oh my God, look at that babe! Think she has a man?" A man said to his small group of friends. The ignorant way some humans spoke flabbergasted me. How they could misuse a language so completely was beyond my understanding.

"Totally, man, how could she NOT, with that goddamn body?" Another man replied.

I rolled my eyes and stopped listening. Human males were not only predictable – they were irritating. Their reactions towards me were ridiculous. And their ignorant language...

Both vampires and humans considered me attractive. I did not understand why some thought that I was more attractive than other vampires were. Vampires were naturally beautiful: it was a part of who we were. I was honestly no different from other. I had curly hair, a pair of dark red eyes behind some contacts and a well-trained body... Just like every other normal vampire had.

Boarding went by quite quickly compared to the passport control. Since there was no pre-decided seating, I took a seat in the back of the plane when we had to enter the plane. Most humans preferred the front when they flew, but I wasn't like most humans – hell, I wasn't even human.

I spent the time up in the air pretending to sleep. Yes – pretending to sleep. I could have listened to music or thought about a random question and tried to answer it, but neither of those were things I normally did. Music was overrated and I had grown used to avoid thinking too much, with the exception of figuring out action plans.

Sitting still with closed eyelids, only twitching once or twice, for the sake of the looks, was simple. As easy as breathing, I had heard some humans say. In my case, it was as easy as not breathing.
However, I had never been good at sitting still for a long time, more exactly for four or five hours. When the pilot finally landed the plane, I was already restless. I no longer needed to fake my human gestures like stretching or lightly moving my body. I felt an urge to run, just go anywhere and run. On the other hand, I had a mission to accomplish, and that was more important than anything was.

It took a while until the humans were able to collect their bags and then make their way out of the airplane. No, that was a lie. It took more than a while: I found myself, once again, thinking of how slow and stupid humans were. They didn't even manage to walk out of a plane in less than fifteen minutes.

Fortunately for my non-existing patience, I hadn't checked in any luggage, so I didn't have to wait for those to arrive. I could simply walk out, and I did so too. Soon I was standing outside the airport, waiting for a sign or anything that could tell me where I should go. Luckily the weather was cloudy even though it was still afternoon.

However, no sign came.

Not one single sign. How was I supposed to know where to go, if my so-called luck didn't help me? I decided that I'd try something risky. Instead of waiting for signs to come to me, I'd find them.

I stood still for a while and studied the humans around the airport.

A young girl, about thirteen, was talking in her phone with a boy. Judging by her sobs, she was leaving him. I shook my head, knowing that she'd get over it eventually. A man, around thirty years old, was dressed in a pair of jeans he clearly wasn't comfortable in. He was twitching as if either he needed to pee or as if he had bought jeans that were ten sizes too small. Poor guy... or not. I didn't feel any sympathy for him at all.

Aha! There – a teenager, maybe eighteen years old, wearing a school t-shirt with the text 'Lincoln High School'. She had reddish brown hair, and had green eyes.. If I didn't know for sure that Bree was still in Hungary, I would have thought that the girl was her. They looked nearly identical... Except that Bree was a vampire.

"Excuse me," I said loudly to her, causing her to jump. "I'm wondering where Lincoln High School is?"

She smiled at me nervously, clearly bothered by something in my appearance, but I couldn't figure out what it was. Maybe I looked to dangerous? Maybe I should smile back. I tried grinning, but that only made her flinch.

"Um... it's... 701 South 37th Street," She told me. I smiled at her again, this time without flashing my teeth, and it seemed to work.

"Thanks," I said appreciatively to her. Most humans would automatically start to try to give me road directions, while this girl simply told me the address. "What's your name?"

She mumbled, "Mirabelle, and yours?"

I sighed, confirming my thoughts. I hadn't expected it to be Bree, but I had such a strange impulse that I needed to ask. "My name is Corinne," I said, and then quickly walked towards a taxi before either of us had a chance to say anything more.

"Hi, 701 South 37th Street, please," I said to the taxi driver. It was a middle-aged man who stared at bit too long at me (and my chest) for my liking. That wouldn't have been too annoying or surprising, though he also tried to make small talk.

I wasn't exactly enjoying when humans tried to small talk. It just took away unnecessary time; instead of having a useful conversation, people chatted about the weather. Unless they tried to explain it to a blind person, it was completely pointless. They didn't need another person to tell them the weather - they obviously were able to see it for themselves. Obviously, I didn't talk much, unless it was important. It rarely was, now that I wasn't working with that anymore.

"So, you're on your way to Lincoln High?" The taxi driver asked. I had to stop myself from rolling my eyes. No, I'm just saying that address because I'm not going there. A former friend had told me that too much sarcasm made people bitter – and I used sarcasm all the time.

"Yes," I simply said.

He looked disappointed at my short answer, but didn't continue to ask me questions. I was immensely relieved when we arrived. I paid the taxi driver and jumped out of the car. While watching the taxi driving away, I tried to decide what I would do next. The afternoon had slowly turned into night, so there was no one nearby. I smiled. Maybe I'd go for a hunting trip later…

That was when I saw it. A large map glued underneath the sign saying "Welcome to Lincoln High". Since there was no one here, I used my full vampire speed to run across the parking lot. It only took me few seconds to reach the map.

I gasped silently… I hadn't even realized that Tacoma was in Seattle! How could I have missed such a huge detail? It was time to stop relying on my luck and take this matter into my own hands. Now that I thought about it, it made sense that Seattle was the starting point. It had all happened in Seattle – why wouldn't that son of a bitch vampire stay there, too?

Well, at least I knew where to search now. Seattle and the nearby towns should watch out. I was on a hunt now, and everyone knew that I never lost a hunt. I'd get my revenge, even if it was the last thing I did.

Watch out, vampire… I wouldn't leave without my revenge.