A/N: Hey, my lovely readers! Sorry about the idiotic mistake I made earlier xD Thanks to everyone who alerted me to that! Yikes…. Annnywayyy…. How has your holiday season been going, everyone?! I've been busybusybusy, but I got ALL my shopping done TODAY. Which is unheard of, seeing as there's still a week (and a day) until Christmas. My husband and I celebrated our 5th year anniversary this week (sent the kids away to the grandparents' and just had a weekend to ourselves, which was lovely). But it's back to the daily grind of things now. Anyway.
This chapter was tough, and slowww for me. Been working on it pretty much every day for two weeks, and still—it's very short. I apologize for that. I'm thinking Darkest Hour is gonna turn out to be more a novella than a full-length companionship. But we still have Eclipse and Breaking Dawn ahead of us :) So, be looking forward to that!
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The body had been removed from the murder scene at least forty-eight hours earlier, but I could still catch the remaining notes of its scent. I processed the young girl's fragrance, the notes of lavender and cedarwood, slightly marred by the slight tinge of marijuana. Underneath that, I was able to catch Victor's scent mixed in with the girl's.
It was enough to give me a vague start, and I followed his faint trail into the trees.
The trajectory of his aroma was spotty, at best. Granted, I had never tried my hand at tracking before, but even beyond my limited know-how, I knew he possessed talent in the area of avoidance.
He seemed to have followed as straight a trail as possible, barely brushing against the foliage around him.
Two miles from the scene of the murder, I found a single one of his hairs wedged in the bark of a tree. I pinched it between my fingers, bringing it to my nose and inhaling deeply—committing the fullness of his scent to my memory.
The next note of his aroma I caught was fresher, only hours old, and my anticipation swelled. His scent guided me like a shining beacon, leading me to the place where I could release my fury and angst.
But as my feet carried me north across the terrain, Victor's scent began to fade, each hint of his aroma spacing farther and farther apart.
I had to backtrack several times, bouncing between Illinois's borders and Wisconsin's, before, hours later, I was able to pick his fragrance up again to the north-east. I followed the path for a long while until I reached Lake Michigan, where Victor's scent abruptly vanished.
I stood on the bank of the lake, staring out over the navy blue water, tinged silver in the light of the moon now. I strained for a glimpse of red, or a flash of white skin. Seeing nothing, I traversed up and down the shoreline for several minutes, searching for a stronger scent, but ultimately finding nothing of consequence.
I returned to the place where Victor's scent had originally faded, and folded my arms across my chest. He'd gone into the water here, I was sure of it. Crossing waterways was a well-known measure of evasion for vampires. Our scent could not be contained on the currents of a body of water, and so, each trail would effectively be evaporated. It had been why my mother, sister and I had taken a boat across the Strait of Juan du Fuca last Spring, when we'd conveyed Joss away from Forks. We wanted it to be clear to her exactly where we had gone.
There were numerous places I could possibly pick up his scent again. My mind flipped through each quickly, a catalogue of copious information. He could have gone straight across to Michigan, or he could have continued to swim north and ended up somewhere in northern Wisconsin.
It made sense to me that he would take cover in the Huron-Manistee National Forest, but then, he also could have done the same in the Chequamegon-Nicolet—though farther north, just as discreet.
With so little knowledge of his personality and endeavors, I was at a loss. Where was he going? What was his goal? What did he want?
He didn't seem to be heading anywhere close to Washington's direction—for which I was glad. I did not want to urge him in that direction, or give him any ideas.
Quite honestly, I had not expected to come across his scent so quickly. Had I expected the battle to be won so effortlessly? Had I thought so little of my enemy? Regardless of if he knew he was being followed or not, he'd obviously survived this long with more than enough blood on his hands to warrant revenge—if the indication of Joss's history had been any suggestion.
I pulled myself to my feet, took a breath, and surged into the water, intent on picking up his trail once more—somewhere, somehow.
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It took me all night to relocate Victor's scent.
I was correct in my assumption that he'd employed some subterfuge to keep whoever might be following him off his tail. I still couldn't fathom how he might know I was following him, and why he wouldn't just turn and face me, if that were the case. Perhaps it had something to do with the aura of mystery in his thoughts. Not that I could not read them clearly—rather, there was something entirely unidentifiable… Some cunning, deceiving part of his psyche that was wholly differentiated from his thought processes.
Regardless of this fact, I was still intent on seeing my goals through.
It was only when morning dawned, and the sun flooded the sky with warmth and brightness, that I thought of the boy I'd left behind. Until then, I hadn't thought of him the whole night through.
Now, as I paused on the edge of Milwaukee's civilation, Beau's specter appeared to me. It did not say anything—his bright cerulean eyes only appraised me seriously and quietly. His ghost watched as I paused, undecided over where to go next.
Victor's scent carried on ahead of me, into the bright-lit city, but I was safe here, in the cover of the trees. Victor had obviously made his passage hours before, when it had still been dark enough to disguise the effects the sun would have on his skin.
I was too late to follow him now, forced into seclusion by the rising rays of the sun. Caged by their relentless bars.
What are you going to do now? Beau's ghost questioned.
What now, indeed.
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Time slowed to the indiscernible passing of a shadow.
Days, or weeks—maybe more—passed without a trace from Victor, and my leads quickly fizzled away.
I was left with nothing else to do but sit and wait for another clue. And while I waited, the memories would torture me.
"H-how do you know my name?"
"That wasn't very nice… That thing you do—with the hypnotizing and the dimples…"
"… It doesn't matter to me what you are…"
"I love you, Edythe…"
"I want to be with you… Forever."
They sucked me under, their waves inexorable, and I drowned in them time and time again
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More time passed. I knew this, because the shadows swept across the tree I sat rigidly against time and time again. My capably comprehending brain catalogued the sunrises and sunsets without trouble, and I could have accessed the number of days that had passed if I'd wanted to, but I didn't bother.
The passage of time was enough that the atmosphere around me cooled, and the trees changed color. The animals and birds gave me a wide berth, and as more time passed, their numbers grew smaller. Some lapsed into hibernation—the bears and groundhogs to name a few. Others flew south for the winter.
I, however, stayed where I was, un-breathing and unnaturally still. A statue, trapped in an inescapable swirl of torture and agony. The memories plagued me, drowned me in their black depths for an immeasurable length of time.
If it had not caused me so much pain, I would have reveled in the perfect recall of Beau's features, his voice, our conversations and nights spent together, curled together on his narrow bed.
If it had not caused me so much pain, I would have sat in a dreamlike state forever. However, as it was, the state I was in was not dreamlike. It was as if I were frozen in a nightmare, or chained to an electric chair submerged in an inch of water.
The pain was immobilizing, depriving me of all reason after a time, after it had overcome me enough times, and in its various ways.
I sat still for so long that my body and hair became coated in the filth and grime from the forest floor and the ether around me. Rain and dirt turned into mud, vicious winds whipped my hair into tangles and knots. A thick coat of dirt and dust covered my impenetrable skin.
While my exterior gathered copious vegetation and mess, my veins dried out and I went thirsty. I knew my eyes would be black as pitch, but I ignored the thirst that turned to hunger that turned to starvation for a very long time.
I ignored it for so long that the urges were finally lost on me, and though I knew death by starvation was not possible for a vampire, I wondered if it was something I would eventually, gladly, succumb to. I almost wished for it. To sit and stare, to wallow in my depression, my filth, my pain, until famine overtook me. To feel as frail and groundless as a ghost, to take that form in some ethereal, insubstantial way—to allow it to become me, to take my identity, to reduce me to nothing, and then… When I was finally devoid of every emotion, every sensation, every sense of being and vivacity, it would take me…
But alas, this did not happen.
Eventually, the hunger did overtake me, but not in the way I'd been illogically hoping.
A small herd of deer passed close enough for me to catch their scent, and I acted without thinking.
I fed hungrily and savagely, making a mess of my clothes and face and hair. I'd taken down two of the does before I'd come to my full senses, and took down another and the buck before finally feeling satiated.
When their carcasses lay drained and empty at my feet, I stood in the very empty, very quiet forest and realized, for the first time, just how much time that had passed. A fine cover of frost and frozen persperation coated everything, and the ground beneath my feet was solid and unyielding.
Two months, at least, had passed while I had sat, unmoving and traumatized by my own memories.
I was stunned and terrified that I had been as unaware and overcome as long as I'd been. As oblivious as I'd been to my surroundings, what would it have taken to 'wake' me, if not for the biological urge to feed?
I shuddered to think of Victor, or someone like him, stumbling across me, discovering me in the state I'd been…
I patted my pockets for my cell phone, realizing my family would be worried about me, wanting an update, but came up empty. I traced my own winding, inconsistent trail back to the tree I'd sat against for who knows how long, and located my bag.
I pulled the cell phone out of the front pocket and found its battery dead.
I straightened, pulling the strap over my shoulder.
Fed and a little more clear-minded than I felt I'd been in awhile, I made my way toward the nearby lake.
First on the agenda was getting myself clean. On the bank of the expansive body of water, littered through with blocks of ice, I stripped, and then waded into the shallows until I was waist deep.
I submerged myself to rinse my matted and dirty hair, but I did not stay under long. The strange muted silence and stillness made me anxious.
When I was clean and had changed my clothes, I looped back to bury the carcasses of the deer—uprooting a nearby tree and stowing them in the earth underneath, as well as my bloodied clothes.
When that was finished, I headed in the direction of civilization, to find a cell phone charger and, hopefully, an inkling of where Victor might be. He might've traveled a long ways, and as absent as I'd been, I didn't have a clue where he'd gone. I could only hope he'd left enough of a paper trail—dotted and smeared with the blood of his victims—for me to follow.
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A/N: Again, sorry for the short one, guys! If you have a minute, let me know what you thought—I promise, the next chapter, Edythe will get moving again, and a lot more will happen.
I won't see you all again before the New Year, so have a very merry Christmas, and a fun and safe New Year's Eve! xo
