Disclaimer: Not mine. :)

A/N: I'm back! I'm sorry it's taken me this long but I've been working on how exactly I want the end to unravel. But I feel good about the direction we're heading in now. Quite, quite good. Though I think I'll have to alternate updates between this and Miss Imprint to make sure I don't drop the ball on either one.

I've been consistently amazed at how many people message/review about when this story will be updated. You guys are too marvelous for words. (Though I hope these will suffice.)

Unfortunately it will be a little bit before we see Jared again but that is the nature of the story. I've taken a few liberties with Jane that are also necessary. But it'll all come to light soon enough.

Anyway I hope you enjoy it! Let me know what you think. :)

-S

P.S. I will source some additional research I've done in the epilogue that has already been written but until then it'll have to wait in hopes of preserving some mystery. ;)

Model Daughter

Chapter 1: Hopeless Place

Now we're standing side by side

As your shadow crosses mine

What it takes to come alive

It's the way I'm feeling I just can't deny

But I've gotta let it go.

We found love, Rihanna ft. Calvin Harris

I could see him through the trees. His shadow was long and languid as it stretched across the clearing towards me. He was just out of reach, running in circles, in wide, long circles getting closer and closer.

I wanted to call out to him. But I couldn't. Something was holding me back. Like a weight on my chest, compressing my lungs so there was no breath left in them, no voice.

Jared. I said in my mind. Please come back. It's not what I thought it would be.

But he just kept running his circles.

And then the moon shifted, her pale face shimmering fully in the grey Washington sky and the shadow shifted, shrank somehow. And four legs became two. Wolf became human.

But it wasn't Jared any longer.

It was someone else entirely. And as their fanged, bloody face leaped out of the shadows, I awoke.

I stifled his name with the pillow beneath my chest but I couldn't keep in the heaving breaths. It was like all of the air in the room wasn't enough to satisfy me in that moment, I needed more.

Blinking away the sleep and the vampires that haunted my dreams, I took in the anonymous hotel room. It was spacious, clean—something I was eminently thankful for, and Spartan. There was nothing indicative of our stay here. And there would be nothing here tomorrow when we left for another nameless, faceless city in Europe. I couldn't see anything but what wasn't there. All I could notice was that my mother was no where to be found.

Jane and I had bounced around cities for the last three weeks and with each day I grew more and more certain that the scent we were chasing had long since evaporated. We had yet to meet a vampire let alone one who would lead us to my mother. And yet Jane promised, with impossible confidence that we were almost there, that it would only be a few more days, a few more cities and we would find her.

London had been cold and empty and Paris even more so. By the time we hit Spain and Portugal I was certain I'd made a mistake and now here in Moscow I wasn't sure that I cared anymore.

My mother was gone. Nina in her charge and the hope I had had when we left on this journey had long since expired.

It was dark still. The curtains were drawn tightly—they were always drawn tightly when we traveled. But I could tell from the way the edges didn't glow.

Jane was gone. She disappeared at night, always appearing just before the dawn, her face satisfied and her lips stained red. But her eyes were always that cloudy mahogany, never amber, never red, forever in between.

I felt restless. I needed to get out. I needed air—there wasn't enough in this room.

I slipped a hooded sweater over my tank top and stuffed my feet into fur-lined boots. It would be frigid outside now, but I didn't care. I didn't think about what I would do when I got out.

I just wanted to be alone and away from this hotel room.

The door opened before I could get to it.

Jane.

"Where are you going?" She slid gracefully in and shut the door behind her. I didn't miss the click of the lock.

I shrugged. "I need air. I can't sleep."

She nodded before tilting her head towards the balcony. "It's not safe out there—you should stay here."

"I'll just be a minute."

She watched me for a long moment. "You should stay here."

"What's wrong? Did you find something?"

"I just think it's safer here." She said, her words measured and careful. "Please?"

I scratched the back of my head and then caved. Sometimes with Jane it was easier just to give in. But something was different tonight. She was different. "Okay. I'll be on the balcony."

She nodded before heading into the bathroom for a shower.

I waited until she shut the door behind her and the water turned on to grab my phone from the table next to me and then stepped out.

It was colder than I had thought it would be. Far colder. The city was old and decadent; the kind grandeur that you didn't see in the United States. It was breathtaking. But I didn't have any breath to give.

Far below me I saw a couple walking drunkenly towards the bus station, their arms looped around each other and their breath escaping them in a cloud of white billowy air that flickered in and out of sight until it became to thin to be seen.

I wanted that. I wanted to disappear sometimes. To forget about all of this. To just be.

I missed those days in the forest, just wandering silently with him, and just existing. I felt my fingers dialing a familiar number almost of their own accord and then the phone was ringing and I was waiting with baited breath.

"Hello?" His voice was rough—maybe it was sleep. Maybe it was something else. "Hello?"

But I couldn't. I had left him. I had to be strong enough. But I just needed to hear his voice for a second.

His voice grew fainter then, as if he was answering someone else in the room. "I don't know—it's the same as last time."

"Hello? Is anyone there?" He was back again, and then I heard him exhale. "Hello?"

I slid my finger over the end button. And then I froze.

"Kim?"

Shit. Hang up Kim, hang up.

"Kim, is that you?" He was quieter, far quieter. "Kim, if it's you, I—"

I hung up.

And then I stumbled back against the frigid stone wall behind me, and slid to the iced balcony floor. I stared dumbly at the phone in my hand. He'd guessed.

I'd been too selfish again. I should've left him alone. But I couldn't. And now he was probably remembering me again.

It was the last time, I promised myself. It was the absolute last time. I smashed the phone against the rough cement floor and then again and then again until it fell to pieces and there was nothing left to break.

"Kim?" Jane stepped out, her slim, prepubescent body wrapped in a towel. She was steaming slightly from the hot water and I knew, just for this moment, she would feel alive. But it wouldn't last long.

"Hey." I stood.

She glanced at the tattered iPhone and her lips tightened. "The best thing you can do is forget him."

"I know." I crossed my arms, frustrated. "I know. I just—"

"You were weak." She offered, annoyed and then settled on the edge of the balcony, balancing unafraid above a five story drop. Then again, she probably wouldn't hurt herself if she did fall. "You must remember why we are here."

"I know."

"We will find her." She said, her voice quieter, gentler. "We will find your mother."

I tilted my head towards her. "How are you so sure?"

She ran a hand through her wet locks, already drying perfectly in curled ringlets. "I have forever to find her." She smiled wryly.

"But I don't." I reminded her and she threw her head back in a delighted laugh.

"You could." She bit her lip suggestively. "It would be so easy." She ran a hand across her neck, flirtatious. "All it takes is one, little bite."

"I'm okay, thanks." I replied, dryly before collapsing onto the patio set that had been laid out here. "I'm starting to lose hope." I confessed suddenly. I'd never said it out loud before. It was strangely empowering.

She didn't reply for a long time. She just stared out into the snow covered streets of Moscow, looking past the colored turrets of the St Basil's Cathedral.

"Jane?"

"Hmm."

"What happened to you?"

She looked at me surprised. We'd never had this conversation. We'd never even broached it but tonight I was feeling braver than I had in a long time.

"What do you mean?" Her voice was careful again.

I spread my fingers out on the glass tabletop before me and drew idly in the frost. "How did you become the way you are?"

She let out a slow breath. "Why?"

"I just…I just want to know." I tilted my head towards her. "Please?"

"It was a long time ago." She swung her legs around so that she faced away from me. "It was a very long time ago."

I leaned forward, entranced. She was so mysterious—she'd always been reticent about herself, but forever enticing me to tell me more about her. It was fascinating to have the tables turned.

"I grew up not far from here, but Russia was different then." She smiled. "I had three elder sisters and a single younger brother. My father was an important man and traveled often with my mother. My siblings and I were left with our governess." She trialed off and clenched the stone frustrated.

I had the distinct impression that she rarely spoke of her own past. She seemed like she didn't know how to continue.

"When did it happen?"

She relaxed slightly. "It was in the year 1914. Three days before my thirteenth birthday."

"You seem older." I observed vaguely, unsure of what to say.

She laughed. "Immortality tends to have that affect."

I smiled and motioned for her to continue.

"My father was a dreamer, certain that he could make change in Russia, that he could embalm her wounds. But my mother, she was more practical. She knew that change was coming—that our world was one that we had held on to for too long." Jane let out a long slow breath.

"She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. As a result, there were many men who worshiped her. One of them was a holy man. He had traveled into the darkest and wildest corners of Russia and with him brought secrets of another kind of people: one who could live through anything, even death." She shrugged. "He persuaded my mother that it was the only way to save us, and she believed him."

"So he turned you and your family?"

She nodded. "My mother was turned first and then us, one by one. She conjured reasons for our absence so that we could adapt to our new life."

"Your father was okay with this?"

She shook her head. "No—he would never have agreed to it. But my mother thought that if we had all turned then he would have no choice. He would join us.

"My younger brother Alec was the last of us to turn. It was the year 1918 and he had just had his thirteenth birthday. I had just returned from Paris where I had spent my recuperation and I was determined to prevent it from happening to him. He was innocent, my brother. I had wanted to protect him. And so I told my father the night Alec was to be turned. I confessed everything.

"Together we found them, but it was too late. Alec was writhing on the bed when we found them, crying so desperately for me to end it. But I could not. I could do nothing for him." She licked her lips, her teeth glistening. "My father flew into a terrible rage and he had them killed, my mother and my three elder sisters." Her voice was almost mechanical now, devoid of feeling and energy. "And he would have killed us but I escaped with Alec."

"Did you ever see him again? Your father?" I was so sad for her, I was so desperately sad for her.

"No." Her shoulders were hunched far past her ears now, frozen. "He shot himself."

"I'm sorry." I breathed. "I'm so terribly sorry."

She turned then, her smile wretched and somber. "Why?"

"You lost your family."

She shook her head. "Alec is my family. I have no need of any other."

I didn't know what to say to that, so I didn't say anything. And together we sat in the embers of her history until the dawn painted the city pink and Jane disappeared into the darkness of our hotel room.

I slept most of the day away. It was seven when Jane informed me that I should pack my bags. We were leaving again.

We took a taxi to the Paveletsky Rail Terminal and then from there the Aeroexpress train took us to the Domodedovo International Airport. A private jet waited for us on an isolated runway and as always the pilot's seat was behind locked doors.

Jane instructed me to settle myself while she instructed our flight crew that we would be leaving shortly.

It was no until the jet had lifted it's wheel's off the tarmac that I realized I had never asked where we were headed.

"Water?" A young woman with long curly black hair offered me a bottle of Evian.

"Yes, thank you." I twisted the lid off and drank.

"Of course." She started to walk away but I grabbed her arm, intending to ask for a napkin and then froze as the warmth of her skin shocked my own. She was human. "You're human?"

She looked at me blankly. "Yes."

"I mean, how are you allowed—do you know what she is?" I was stuttered, stumbling.

She just watched me. "I don't understand what you mean. Can I get you anything? Peanuts?"

"No." I said faintly, shaking my head. "I'm allergic. Thank you."

She nodded before receding into the cockpit, warily avoiding Jane who stepped out at the same time.

She was human. And she didn't know anything. Or she was afraid.

I couldn't decide.

Jane sat down across from me, folding her legs demurely to the side and peering out the window. "Sleep. It will be a long flight."

She flipped open a panel in the wall and dimmed the lights and slid it shut again. "Sleep." She repeated.

I slid my eyes closed most of the way but I couldn't fall asleep. I watched her instead, shifting so she wouldn't notice.

She waited a while and then she pulled out a phone from her coat pocket. Someone must have picked up because her entire face relaxed and she smiled. "Alec." She breathed.

And then I let her voice speaking in quiet, delicate Russian lull me to sleep.

I was at home, on the highway that stretched from the Washington driving at 60 no 70 now 80 miles per an hour in my father's Buggati. I'd never been this fast before but with the top down on the convertible it was incredible. The wind was whipping through my hair.

But I wasn't alone.

He was staring out the window, his long legs stretched out before him and his right arm angled over the window frame. His hair was longer and it slid back and forth in the wind. "We need to go faster."

"Jared?"

"Come on, just a little faster." His voice was urgent but he wouldn't look at me, he was focused on the horizon.

"Okay." I heard myself say as I floored the pedal and tipped the speedometer over into the triple digits. The scenery turned into a blur, I could only make out the road ahead, passing under us like a long silver river. "Where are we going?"

He turned to me then, his eyes glistening dark and black. "Don't you know?" He sounded genuinely shocked.

"No—I'm just driving." I gripped the wheel tighter. I couldn't feel the rubber beneath my fingers. They were too cold, frozen. "Where are we going?"

He laughed, his lips sliding into an easy grin and he winked at me. "Just trust me. I'll let you know when we get there."

"But where are we going?" I insisted.

He just shook his head. "Faster, Kim. We need to get there faster." And then he turned his head away again, his eyes searching the woods.

"Okay, I'm trying." I pressed my foot down harder but the car was getting harder and harder to control, and my hands were burning on the rubber. "Jared! I'm losing control of this!"

"We need to go faster." He repeated, his eyes on me now, urging me on. "You can do it, Kim, I know—"

But what he knew I would not find out because I was jerked awake as the plane touched down on the tarmac and the engines boomed in reverse as they slowed us down to taxi.

I gripped the hand rests, my knuckles turning white and blinked my way back to reality. Jane just watched me demurely from across a polished, wooden divider. "Good." She said, "You're awake."

"Yeah." My voice was shaky. I could still see him sitting next to me, he was so close. "Where are we?"

She smiled widely. "Italia."