DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN TWILIGHT OR ANY OF ITS AFFILIATED CHARACTERS! I ONLY OWN CHARLOTTE AND MADDOX (IN THEIR TOTALITY)...PLEASE READ AND ENJOY WITH NO OFFENSE! PLEASE?! LOL
One – Welcome Home
Charlotte Winter stepped off a plane at the Quillayute Airport in Clallam County, Washington. The near-constant wind and rain slapped her face, welcoming her to her new reality. Within mere seconds her blonde hair became a drenched and plastered mess, sticking to her face and falling limply onto the shoulder of her Carhartt. She sighed lightly.
'Great...'
She continued to stand there, attempting to take in the darkened landscape. The storm made it impossible to make anything out. So Charlotte sighed again, gripped her black duffel bag and little tighter and began making her way across the runway to the arrival gate. Over the roaringwind, she heard her cousins excited voice scream her name.
"CHARLOTTE RAE!!!!!!!! OVER HERE!!!!"
Sure enough, she looked up in time to see her cousin Maddox with the violently red hair bouncing up and down, waving her arms over her head. She looked like a crazed lunatic jumping around in a black leather jacket, denim cut offs and knee-high black-vinyl boots with stiletto heels.
Maddox really was the most beautiful woman she had ever seen in her life. Everything about her was perfect; from her tiny frame, exotic deep-blue eyes, chic crop of a haircut, confident walk and her sexily-dangerous "fuck it" attitude. She had been a rebel all her life, and Charlotte always considered her a hero.
When Maddox still lived in Warnerville, New York with Charlotte and her older brother, the cousins were joined at the hip. They were notorious bad-asses, always had their names in the local police blotter for the craziest adventures.
The devious duet lived in a whirl-wind of fist fights, speeding tickets, pills, alcohol, cigarettes, countless expulsions and were even arrested once for mooning the town mayor who had shut down the only skateboard park within 50 miles.
When Charlotte was seventeen years old, the non-stop partying and the weekly encounters with law enforcement caught up to the cousins. One night of what was usually harmless pill-popping turned into the night from hell. Maddox (who was then 23) had piled Charlotte into the truck for a late-night beer and cigarette run. The pills had put them both into a stupefied and completely numb state, almost vegetative. When Charlotte had passed out in the passenger seat, her cousin had begun to show symptoms of an overdose. She ran the truck off the road and crashed head-long into the mayor's front porch. When the cousins came-to, they were both in the local hospital. They each were court-ordered to enter a de-tox program, attend a 6 month drug rehabilitation facility and Maddox had a restraining order slapped on by the mayor himself. As soon as she was free from the programs, she took off to see the country, leaving Charlotte to suffer her punishment alone. She was taken from her older brother's custody and relocated to a center for juvenile offenders. She was stuck there for over 3 years.
One week earlier, Charlotte had been deemed 'fit for life in a community' and was released. She received a phone call from her former partner is crime the night she got home, inviting her to start fresh with her in Washington. And now she was all the way across the country, thousands of miles from everything she had ever known, standing on a runway in the pouring rain with all her earthly possessions in a black duffel bag.
She was clean slate. Maddox was right there in front of her, eager to introduce the good life, the tame life that neither of them had ever experienced back in New York. She ran up and embraced her cousin as tight as she could.
"I can't believe this is actually happening, Maddy! I never thought I could feel so free again!" She smiled and pushed her younger cousin away to get a better look.
"Still the same ol' Shrimpy Charlotte! You haven't grown an inch, have you?" She couldn't help but smile at the comment. She had been 5'3" since she was in 8th grade.
Maddy led the way through the airport, stilettos clicking unmistakably on the concrete. She led them to a roofed parking lot and headed straight to a brand new, cherry-red Ford F-250 Superduty. Charlotte stopped dead in her tracks.
"There's no fucking way that's yours..."
"Hells yeah, girl! That bitch is all mine. Paid for and everything."
"But...how?" Charlotte stammered. Maddy just laughed.
"It's called having a job, babe. Better start liking the idea, because you're gonna need one too." She lit up a cigarette as she climbed in the truck and passed the pack to her younger cousin. She took one and dug around in her pocket for a lighter.
"Trust me, I'm fine with having a job. Anything is better than...there." Maddy didn't say anything, as if she regretted leaving Charlotte behind with no one to turn to. She changed the subject quickly.
"Let's go to my place, unpack your crap, get you out of those shitty wet clothes and take you to Port Angeles so you can get fixed up."
As their pickup thundered down the road, Charlotte sat plastered to the window, leaving it cracked open even though she finished her cigarette a while ago. She let the rain wash her face and the wind twist her hair into knots. It was so dreary, but one of the most beautiful scenes she had seen in a long time. The rugged land, the determination of the trees to survive despite the weather, the huge yellow eyes watching her from the darkness...
'Wait, yellow eyes?' She didn't dare say anything to Maddy in order to spare herself the whole "you're not in New York anymore" speech. She stared harder into the darkness of the woods, trying to find what creature they belong to.
They were still there, focused entirely on her. She couldn't look away from them. Whatever the creature was, it was keeping up with the pickup going 55 mpH. Charlotte blinked to make sure she wasn't imagining things.
'Maybe I'm going nuts...' She sighed.
Little did she know that those burning yellow eyes were now hot on her trail, a predator stalking it's prey.