The Cullens arrived at the place where the wolves lost the track of the strange black creature that had snatch away a prey from the Edward, Bella, Jasper and Alice, two weeks ago. They were all standing at the Sol Duc falls where the water fell down through three paths.
"So this is where the scent got lost?" Jacob asked Sam.
"Well we didn't really lost it. We just can't follow it anymore" Sam explained: "The trace doesn't end here. We can smell it going further in that direction." Sam pointed in the direction of the waterfall where the water fell down.
"Wait, why then can't you follow it anymore?" Esmé asked confused.
"Yeah. You know you can just jump down, right?" Rosalie said pedantic. As response she got a couple growls from the pack.
"We tried that" Sam said annoyed, he turned back towards Carlisle and explained further: "The scent goes horizontal with the river for a hundred feet and then goes straight up."
"Up?...Like up?" Bella asked incredulous with pointing her finger in the air with the second up. Sam nodded.
"It can fly?" Alice asked as incredulous like Bella did.
"I don't have another explanation for it" Sam answered.
"I'm confused about something else" Jasper brought in: "How is it that we can't smell the scent?" Now all the vampire put their noses in the air and took a deep breath, but nobody could find it.
"Carlisle…?" Edward turned himself towards his adoption father. Before Carlisle could answer, one of the younger wolves got restless. Soon the rest of the pack also felt the different vibe.
"What's going on?" Carlisle asked Sam.
"It seems like the creature is coming back. It's coming closer, fast." Both vampires and wolves braced themselves. The wolves couldn't tell from where it would come, they could only feel it come closer. Their eyes were all over the place. Then a sharp high pitching sound came across the sky, followed by a fast moving black creature with an enormous wingspan. The fast movement brought along a gust of wind along with it and eyes followed the creature when it flew over them.
"Or that's a really big bird or it's something completely else" Renesmee stated.
"Come on let's go" Sam ordered his pack and started the chase.
"Renesmee," Bella called to her daughter: "I want you to go back to the house with Jacob."
"Oh come on, mom."
"No time for arguing. Go Renesmee" Edward supported his wife and then joined the chase. Jacob took the hand of the girl he loved and together they ran back to the Cullen house while vampires and wolves were running together after the flying creature.
Soon the pack of wolves and vampires were at an open field, where they stopped abruptly. They noticed they had lost the creature again, or did they? Suddenly the creature flew right through the group so they got split into two groups. Again it flew through but in a different direction which made them split into four groups.
"Regroup" Sam commanded and both wolves and vampires listened. But before they were able to regroup, the creature flew closer in an impressive speed. It produced some sort of plasma blast with a high pitch tone which landed between the four groups that were running towards each other. Because of the blast everybody got thrown backwards and they got even more split up. Most of them were in little groups of two or three but Alice wasn't so lucky. She stood closer to the blast then others an got thrown farther than the rest and badly enough she was alone.
Hurt from the smash she slowly stood up. She hadn't noticed the creature had come after her and now stood just twenty feet away from her. When Alice slowly raised her head she saw the creature standing in front of her, looking very interested at her. Alice didn't know what to do. Should she scream and run or just be quite and don't move a muscle. The creature came closer which made Alice get even more nervous than she already was.
"Jasper…" she whispered while avoiding eye contact with the creature that still came closer, and closer. She just hoped help was on it's way because she really didn't know what to do. Alice didn't have to wait long before wolves and vampires were standing around her. They all looked at the creature, some with very big eyes and an open mouth, while trying to interpret the information they took in.
"Is that a…?" Rosalie started but didn't finish because she couldn't believe what she saw.
"Yeah…" Carlisle answered Rosalie's unfinished question: "…that's a dragon."
Jasper didn't care what creature is was, he just wanted to leave his love alone. So he started running fast towards the dragon, jumped in the air with his fist ready to punch and gave a loud warriors cry. But the dragon was fast too. It twisted around and swung it's tale against Jasper, who flew back to the place he came from. The dragon growled and got defensive by making itself big, spread its wings and stood in between Alice and her family. It was strange because it looked like the dragon wanted to protect Alice.
"Wait…!" Esmé called trying to prevent Alice or anyone else getting hurt. The dragon saw its change and gave a strong push with its wings so it got off the ground. Then it started on its clime to go higher. Alice thought it was over but suddenly Emmett yelled: "Look out!" Alice looked up and saw the dragon coming down in a straight line towards her. She closed her eyes, covered her head with her arms and screamed. "Aaaaaaah!" Jasper already started running back to Alice but right before his eyes, the dragon picked Alice up from the ground and flew away with her hanging in the grip of its claws.
Alice opened her eyes again and looked down. There she saw her family and the tribe running under her. She also saw Jasper, who kept screaming her name. Alice called back but she doubted Jasper could even hear it. The dragon kept going higher and soon she didn't even see her family anymore. Alice was scared, both from the dragon and the height. She never had been at a height like this. Alice could feel the dragon was slowing down. It started circling around the top of a couple rock formations. Then suddenly it dropped her and she landed hard on one of those rocks. The platform she was lying on wasn't big. She roughly estimated it was 32 feet by 45 feet, so it was big enough for her and the dragon to be on the same platform but still be at a safe distance. After making a couple more circles the dragon also landed on top of the rock formations.
Then Alice got overwhelmed by an echoing voice in her head: "Alice…I found you…Alice Alice, finally…Alice, I finally found you." Alice had no idea what was going on but she felt like she was going crazy. While Alice looked around frightened, trying to find out where the strange voice came from, the dragon took little steps towards her with its eyes fixated on her. She sank to her knees and covered her ears, trying to shut out the voice. She shrank together even more with agony in her eyes. Then as fast as the voice had appeared, it disappeared into nothing. When Alice slowly got back up, she saw the dragon sitting calmly down at just 12 feet away from her. Alice saw her chance to escape and ran towards the edge. She didn't care how high it was, she just wanted to get out of there.
Just a second before she wanted to jump, she heard that same voice again. But this time it sounded clearer…calm…and it wasn't echoing. "Don't go" the voice said. At the same time the dragon went standing back on its feet. Alice stopped. She didn't know why, but she did. The voice sounded calm and it didn't frighten her like before. Alice turned around and saw the dragon looking at her with big eyes. They made eye contact. Strangely enough Alice didn't feel scared anymore. She kind of felt safe, like she knew the dragon didn't want to hurt her.
Suddenly the red sapphire stone, on the chest of the dragon, started glowing. A dark bloodlike red light spread around the dragon, getting clearer until it was a bright white light. When the light faded away, a young girl had taken the place of the dragon.
"Alice, please don't go. I just found you again" the little girl said. After processing the fact that the dragon had just changed into a girl right in front of her, Alice recognized the girl. She had seen her many times…,in pictures. The girl looked just like the little girl in Alice's family photo album. Alice couldn't bring out a word. She only stared at the girl with wide open eyes. When the girl took a step closer towards Alice, she took a step back.
"What's wrong?" the girl asked: "Don't you remember me?"
Alice tried to speak again, but it wasn't really cohesive: "How…What…Who?"
"Everything is gonna be okay" the girl tried to sooth Alice.
"Who are you?" Alice asked importunately, finally bringing out a full sentence.
"I'm your little sister, Cynthia" the girl answered.
Alice could see there were tears forming in Cynthia's eyes but she didn't really care at that point. A sudden quick flash brought her back to the past where she saw herself and the girl in front of her, both a couple years younger, sitting on the floor trying to solve a puzzle together. They were laughing and having so much fun together. It took Alice by surprised and now her eyes also got filled with tears.
"How…" Alice started when the first tear rolled over her face: "I don't understand…"
"I've been searching for you for almost a century and now I finally found you." A smile appeared on Cynthia's face.
"You've been searching for me? As a dragon?...You're a dragon…How is that possible?...What happened?" Alice kept rattling but Cynthia interrupted her.
"I wanna answer your question, I really do. But not now, later. I wanna ask you something first." Then her facial expressions changed from serious to sad: "How is it that you don't remember me?" Alice sympathized with the girl and calmed down.
"I don't know. I don't remember anything from before I became a va…" Alice shut herself down just in time. She didn't knew is Cynthia knew about vampires specifically. And if Alice would tell Cynthia about the existence of vampires, she brought both her own and Cynthia's life in danger. The Volturi wouldn't be so happy about her being a blabbermouth. But then Cynthia surprised Alice by finishing the sentence.
"…A vampire."
"You know about vampires?"
"Yeah, that's how I knew you were still alive…well…still existed. After your funeral I kept seeing you around. Mom and dad threatened to put me in the same institution as where they had put you, so I shut up about it. But then I started changing into a dragon and I heard a lot of things on the street. I started to understand what had happened to you. But by then you were nowhere to be found. That's when I started my search." The entire time, Alice and Cynthia were looking each other straight in the eyes and they were coming closer together until they only stood five feet away from each other.
"Wait…" Alice began: "Where did voice came from? The one the echoed all through my head? Where is it now? Was that you?"
Cynthia nodded.
"That was my telepathy. It's how I can communicate when I'm a dragon. When I'm excited or restless or so, it echoes. Sorry."
"It's okay. But why didn't you just come to me instead abducting me?"
"Would you have believed me if I just had come up to you and said I was your sister who actually needed to be death already. Owh and don't forget the dragon part…"
"Good point. But then when you snatched that deer away and then left it behind, what was that about?"
"I was hoping you were going to follow me right away, but when I didn't see you coming after me I just dropped the deer."
"I just can't believe you've kept searching for me all these years." Cynthia reached forward to take Alice's hand.
"I would do it all over again if I had to…" Cynthia sighed: "I really misted you." Cynthia took a step forward and hit her arms around Alice to give her a tight hug. Alice was surprised, but at the same time it felt natural so she put her arms around her little sister and let her chin rest on the side of Cynthia's head. After a couple seconds Alice pulled a little back from their hug and looked down at the childs face that resembled her a bit.
"I should go home. Everybody is gonna be worried sick."
"Ow…yeah sure…I understand" Cynthia reacted disappointed.
"I'd like you to come with me. I want to introduce you to my family."
"You're family?"
Alice nodded with a smile. "Now how are we gonna get back? I don't even know where we are."
"I do…and I know just the way to get back" Cynthia said proud. In a couple seconds she had changed back into the dragon. It startled Alice a little.
"Want a lift?" Alice heard in her head. Shocked, she looked around but then remembered it was Cynthia who was communicating by telepathy. The dragon lowered its body so Alice could climb up. She hesitated first, but then crawled on the dragon right before its wings.
"Hang on" Alice heard when the dragon's wings spread.
Then with a strong sweep they came off the ground and they flew away from the rock formations. Again the height scared her so this time she held tight on the little spikes on the back of the dragon. After a while Alice's grip loosened and she started to enjoy the flying. Cynthia could feel the change of mood and produced a loud sound of enthusiasm.