Without Destiny

Chapter 10

I'm well and truly miserable by the time I make it to the bus stop. I'm used to walking long distances and staying on my feet, active, for hours on end, but there is just something about being absolutely alone in the world under a darkening sky, cold, walking barefoot, and having the heavens constantly dumping all of its water on you that just makes you want to scream and cry while you simultaneously hate your life.

The bus stop is utterly abandoned of people- the streets and surrounding shops just as deserted.

It truly feels like I am the last person on earth- that maybe both gods and titans lost and now all that is left are the buildings that man made and the ever-present forces of nature. Like rain.

I wonder what Zeus has against this state?

I board the first bus that happens to pull up to the curb, noting that there is only one other occupying the vehicle. They keep to themselves up towards the front, so I trudge my way to the back for some privacy.

I flop, exhausted, into a seat and it's not long until the rocking motion drags me into a fitful slumber.

"Hey. Hey, kid, wake up."

A hand shakes me awake, jolting me from sleep with a stab of panic before my sluggish thoughts assess the situation.

The bus driver hovers over me, and it's just rows and rows of empty seats lit up by weak fluorescent lights.

"This is the last stop, kid. Is there somewhere specific I could take you?"

"What um," I mumble, rubbing at my eyes, "what city is this?"

"Seattle." The man replies with a touch of concern in his voice. "Can I drop you off somewhere?"

"No. No, uh this is," I yawn, staggering to my feet while trying to shake some awareness into me. The back of my head throbs from where I'd been knocked unconscious. "This is fine. Thanks," I finish with a sigh.

He allows me to slip past him in the isle until I stumble out the doors into the night that is lit very well with tall buildings and street lights.

Seattle is a much bigger city then the one I left behind, though it still seems strangely quiet. There are actually people walking about and a few cars splashing puddles up onto the sidewalk, but it seems like people are hiding. Maybe I've just grown used to the city that never sleeps (except a few weeks ago when Morpheus put all of Manhattan to sleep).

With an exhausted sigh, I set off in a random direction, hoping to stumble across an abandoned store or building I can break into for the night. The few people who are out and about (drunkards stumbling out of bars) don't pay me any attention as I meander under as many streetlights as I can until I realize that if I want to find somewhere abandoned, I'd have to go to the more rundown part of town that is less populated.

So, with my hood up and shoulders hunched, I do what every child and teenage girl are told not to do and turn down a dark alley way.

I don't make it a hundred yards before I feel someone behind me, and I whirl with a scathing remark on my tongue. It dies as I see the creature standing just to feet away, and stumble back a few steps.

The dark and rain make it difficult to see, but the figure is clearly female with red flaming hair that lies plastered to her porcelain cheeks.

She is the most beautiful person I've ever seen. And she's the most obviously inhuman creature I've ever seen (you know, other than the normal scales, ginormous, or more than the usual amount of body parts).

Her eyes glow red with blood, and her lips curl up at the corners revealing pearly white teeth as pale as her perfect skin.

"Well, well, well," she croons, even her voice alerting me to the complete inhumanness of her. "Aren't you the most delicious smelling thing I've ever come across."

I stand as still as stone as she stalks slowly around me. Every one of my instincts tell me to remain still. So, I listen to them, cocking my head to strain my ears through the patter of rain.

"A vampire I presume."

Her foot hesitates the next step, before continuing to come back around, back into my line of sight.

"What's this?" She asks, interest and curiosity shining in her unnatural gaze. Her eyes flicker closed as she inhales deeply.

I take this moment to slip my hand in my pocket and withdraw my weapon, hoping to the gods that I turned my back on, that celestial bronze hurts these creatures from a different legend.

They snap back open at my movement, and her smile is all the more gleeful than before.

"Oh, the wolves. Their scent is so faint I almost missed it. You must be close to them for their stench to still be clinging to you in this weather."

I shift to my other foot, making note of how the vampire's eyes track my slightest movement.

"What do you know of the wolves?" I question curiously, only turning my head as she starts another circle.

"Just that they have a habit of getting in my way. They can't protect the little Swan forever."

Little Swan? As in Bella Swan? I tense. What does this red eye monster want with that human?

"You'd need an army to get to her," I answer as casually as I can manage. She halts directly behind me, making it impossible to track her with my eyes.

"An interesting thought..." she compliments, and my stomach drops. That doesn't sound like just a passing comment. It's too thoughtful.

Something in the air changes, a charge to it that has my instincts reacting before my brain catches up. I find myself spinning fast, pressing the plate that extends Morph to its full length and clutching the shaft in both hands as twist my entire body, using every ounce of strength that I have, as I swing my weapon like a baseball bat.

I hadn't heard her rush me, my eyes couldn't even track her, but the end of my pole connects with her cheek hard, sending her crashing into a brick wall as the force jolts all the way up my shoulders.

She pulls herself slowly out of the crumbling wall, eyes wide and shaken as she puts a delicate hand to her no-longer perfect cheek that has cracks spider webbing out from the point of contact my pole struck.

I press another plate along the shaft and a scythe blade springs out of the end.

She eyes the weapon wearily, more hesitant of me than before, even though I myself am not certain that I could win against her.

I suppose she decides that it's not worth the risk, though, because when I blink, she's gone.

I stand there tensely for a little longer, blood singing in adrenaline as I wait, but she doesn't return to try and kill me again, so I let my stance relax. My weapon dips to where the blade tip disturbs the murky surface of a puddle.

The rain continues.

My mind races as my emotions war with themselves.

The hollow feeling in my chest throbs at the thought of leaving my new friends (because I did make some friends here) to face whatever army the red-head could dredge up. I want to go back- to at least warn them that she is after Bella (I did become somewhat fond of the girl and her old truck)- to help them.

But can I really trust myself to fight in another war? I made so many bad decisions in the last one. I already watched so many people I knew die... My choices killed them… If I had chosen differently, would my sister still be alive? Would Alison, or Mason, or Luke, still be alive….?

"Gods damn it!" I snarl, swiping my scythe angrily through the air before shrinking it and stuffing it in my pocket.

I just want to not have to fight anymore, to not watch anyone else die or be the cause of it.

Gods damn it...

I scale the fire escape of an abandoned office building, smashing the window with my elbow before I drop inside.

It's almost pitch-black inside, but I shuffle my way deeper peeling off my soaked clothes until I'm just left in my underwear as I blindly drape them on overturned chairs. Then I curl up on the carpet in a corner, ignoring the smell of dust and mildew.

I've slept in much worse conditions, and I need my energy for tomorrow and figuring out how to get back to Forks and the reservation. I slip into my usual restless sleep.

...

I walk faster after lifting the wallet off the man, giving a half-hearted apology as he curses at me for the collision. Only when I make it around the corner do I pull it out into view and thumb through the contents. I bypass the ID, snapping the credit cards so that a less kind thief won't get ahold of it, and pluck the cash from the folds.

I stuff the rest into a trash can as I pass it, counting the bills as I duck into a convenient store gas station.

Even before I made friends with kids from the Hermès cabin, I knew how to steal. It's a skill that every kid on the streets learn- all gentle fingers and no fumbling thumbs. If you get caught enough, you learn quick. I was on the streets five months before a satyr found me and took me to camp.

Sadly, nowadays people don't carry cash too often, and never much of it. It's all credit cards now.

After browsing shortly, I meander to the front of the store with a bag of chips in hand and my hood securely over my head.

As the cashier rings up my purchase with drooping eyes, I pluck the last sour gummy worms packet off the hook in front of the counter.

"Do you have any more of these?" I ask innocently.

The teenager sighs and bends down beneath the counter. When her head disappears out of sight, I reach up on my toes to pluck several bills out of the open register she had been about to put my few dollars into.

Sara, her name tag says, stands just as I return to my previous slouched leaning.

"Will that be all?" She drawls, placing another sour gummy worms on the counter next to the first.

"Actually, could you call me a taxi too?"

She rolls her eyes but picks up the phone while she rings up my worms. With a smile, I hand over some of the cash I had just taken from the register.

"Thank you!" I call as I leave the store to wait outside. It has stopped raining, but the sky still remains a stubborn overcast as I try to build up my walls and prepare myself to return to the place I had just run away from.

This feels far too much like I'm coming crawling back with my tail tucked between my legs. As I wait for my taxi to pick me up, eating my breakfast of chips and sour gummy worms, I work hard in trying to convince myself that this is not me giving in or saying I'm wrong. I have new information that I didn't have before my decision to leave. This is me righting a wrong I can never really make right.

This is me preparing for war (hopefully on the right side this time making better decisions).

A/N: Yay, so she's going back. I'd like to say that she would have eventually returned even if she wasn't given a reason, but man that flaw is fatal. She might have eventually realized she shouldn't have left, but she wouldn't have gone back because she is so stubborn. Sadly, I'm kind of like this.

Please review!

Is it physically painful to anyone else, to admit that a decision you make in the wrong one, so you go through with it anyway because you don't want to admit it? No? It's just me? Awesome.

~Silver~