Author's Notes: Thank you reviewers! KMT06055, Wolfmonkey, kmddeprez1122, and emma!
In this chapter, Nessie embraces her newfound freedom in Brazil, only to be startled by something she didn't expect.
Disclaimer: The Twilight saga and all characters therein are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. No profit is being made from this fanfiction and no copyright infringement is intended.
Chapter Ten
Vulnerable
It was with a sense of calm that I watched the jagged green mountains of Rio de Janeiro float closer toward me. My hands rested on the whitewashed railing of the cargo ship. The air was balmy. I wore a white cotton shirt, unbuttoned, over a dark blue sundress that rippled in the breeze.
For the past few days, I'd had a chance to think hard about things. After a night filled with tears and regrets in that hotel room in Panama, I knew I had a choice. I could have gone to the airport and been home for Christmas morning. For a few moments I had started repacking my things, hands shaking, getting ready to leave… but every time I rehearsed my apology in my head, I couldn't get past it. In the end I had curled up alone in the big empty bed and clutched my knees to my chest, determined to wait it out.
It was either go forward on my own, free and unfettered, or go back to being Jacob's second love.
My possessiveness toward Jacob was irrational. I knew that. But I couldn't help it, either; imprinting was like a force of nature, and to fight against it was like flinging insults at a hurricane.
But after I was done crying that night, I decided to continue what any reasonable person would do in the face of that hurricane: evacuate.
It was terrifying to be alone in the world when I had always been surrounded by family… but the alternative was worse. I would not live my life by some mystical imprinting nonsense. Jacob was the real leech in my family: imposing himself on Bella all those years ago (his advances must have been rejected, since she punched him), and now imposing himself on me. What was his deal?
I wasn't going to stick around to find out. I had my own life to lead and in Rio I had a friend, unconnected to any stupid old werewolf, who was in danger and needed help.
The next day after my breakdown, Christmas morning, I'd checked out of the hotel, driven down to the docks, and made arrangements to get to Brazil.
The ship on which the Jag and me had hitched an expensive last-minute ride was Portuguese, with an old sea dog captain who looked like he belonged in the pirate era: curt, grizzled, sun-worn, just like his ship. The crew were young and illiterate. A few of them had made passes at me, but not very strenuous ones. I guessed I had a hard look in my eye that made them wary.
As the churning engines brought me closer to Rio's industrial docks, I felt a soaring exhilaration. It was like flexing a muscle I'd never tested before and finding it to be strong. I had everything I needed: beauty, money, and the hacker talent of inventing more money. I was immortal, with impenetrable skin. I even had a natural designer perfume scent.
When I stepped off the dock, I had a smile on my face as I passed through customs, signed for my car, and started the drive to the hotel. From the ship I'd made a reservation for a week at the famous Copacabana Palace Hotel, right on the white sand beach. They'd told me that there was nothing available, but Jasper had taught me that for people with money, there was always room. He'd been right.
The smile faded as I pulled into the chaotic traffic of the Port of Rio. I had no idea where I was going. My sat-nav was giving me contradicting directions, and one of the streets was closed off by scaffolding and roadwork, and the trucks were so tall that I couldn't see around them, and there were no street signs on anything. The polluted, exhaust-filled air overwhelmed me and I tried to breathe through my mouth.
The noise, too, was a physical force. I could detect all kinds of layers, machines and computers and the grinding of old engines… talking, breathing… rubber tires grinding into dusty pavement… scratchy salsa music from an aging radio… an electric saw that needed a new motor.
It all made me want to scream. I saw an idling row of taxis and I drove the car up next to them, scattering pedestrians. I chose a driver at random; he was standing outside his cab, smoking.
I shouted at him in Portuguese. "You! You, there! How much to drive me to my hotel?"
This must have come out very wrong, because the other drivers whooped and hollered and made rude gestures at the both of us.
I blushed hotly and made myself repeat the question. "I'm lost, I need to go to my hotel."
The driver stomped out his cigarette and looked dubious. "You leave your car here?" He switched into English, perhaps to save himself from humiliation at the hands of my Portuguese.
"No, no, you drive my car."
"I already have this car." He pointed to his aged taxi.
My hands clenched into frustrated fists. "No. I am lost. I need to get to my hotel. You get in my car and drive me to the hotel. Is that okay?"
"Okay? Yes, that's okay."
"Okay, then." As he walked towards me, I could distinguish his unique scent of smoke, motor oil, and tangy body odor. His wife washed his clothes with bleach, but not often, and he used a petrolatum-based gel in his hair. Lovely.
Not for the first time, I was grateful that I could snap necks with my fingers, if need be. This would not have been a good situation for a helpless human girl. I thought again of PeuChen91.
"What hotel?" he asked.
"Copacabana Palace Hotel."
His eyes widened to the size of half-dollars in his sweating face. "Copacabana! Ai!" Then he noticed my Jaguar and his eyes just about fell out of his face. He ran a reverent hand over the steering wheel. "Ai!" He turned to me. "This will cost you much."
Sigh. Typical. I smiled at him, waiting for his offer.
"Three hundred dollars US."
"That's fine." I'd been expecting much worse.
His face fell a tad, realizing he could have gotten away with twice that amount, then he started the engine. The driver moved my car in and out of traffic with expertise and I was glad; despite my reflexes, I probably would have gotten totaled by the insane truck drivers. Soon the neighborhood shifted into high-rise luxury; half an hour later, we were in front of the gleaming white marble façade of the Copacabana Palace.
The old Fred Astaire song from Flying Down to Rio floated through my head. Edward played it on the piano sometimes for Bella, something about their honeymoon. The memory of my parents made me wince. I paid the driver three hundred dollars cash, plus a fifty as a tip, and he welcomed the "pretty young lady" to Rio.
That night I had my hair styled at the hotel salon ("Oh, this beautiful hair, it is like bronze, it's natural, you say?", and I'd replied, "One hundred percent original human.") and then I retreated to my room, ordered a raw steak (five-star resorts didn't ask many questions of their guests) and spent the evening on the balcony with my laptop, planning out the next day.
I'd be spending some quality time on the hunt, and I needed to get my bearings. I would be taking a taxi this time; now I knew better than to navigate these foreign roads with my traitorous sat-nav. Later, Alice called my cell phone, but I let it ring.
I slept well that night for the first time since I'd left Rochester.
I'd been in the taxi for an hour already. I'd never imagined so many people stuffed up against the ocean, amongst the hills, in hollows and slums, on steep inclines. It would be a good place for a vampire to hunt, actually; in this city of over forty million, no one would miss one or two every couple weeks.
My laptop was in a case at my feet. Once I got to the address listed for PeuChen91's home system, I planned to download her files and hope they contained a clue. I hoped she wasn't just on vacation; she would want to kill me if she knew I'd taken her gaming files.
The car provided by the hotel smelled of too-expensive cologne, hairspray, cloth, leather, oil, alcohol. I could never live in a city like this. My senses were overloaded.
My driver was a taciturn young man with a turned-down mouth and a grim, flat, practical tone of voice during the few syllables he did speak. I liked him. He seemed to know Rio like the back of his own hand.
I also appreciated that he didn't ask me any questions about why I wanted to visit a random address in the suburbs. It wouldn't make good small talk for me to explain that I was looking for my fellow-hacker-criminal-nerd friend who may or may not have been kidnapped, harmed, or killed by an enemy hacker.
Leaning my head against the tinted glass, I watched the people on the street. A group of boys darted out of the way as we passed their game of street football; they wore tattered clothes and bright smiles. A young woman wore a red scarf that fluttered in the polluted breeze. An old couple, in their eighties at least, walked hand-in-hand down the street, faces matched wrinkle-for-wrinkle. So this is humanity, I thought. This is half of what I am.
PeuChen91 lived in this city. She would be the first human friend that I ever had – Charlie and Sue didn't count because they were family. I wondered what her life was like, if she was rich or poor… if she still had a life.
"Belford Roxo," said the driver.
We'd turned into a mixed neighborhood: not poor, not glitzy. There were children everywhere – it was three in the afternoon, and school was getting out. The main drag was crowded and lined with shops, nineteen-seventies era apartment complexes, small houses crammed in between… rusty billboards covered in fresh advertising paper… once in awhile, a plasma in a window, running an ad or a television show. The streets were dusty but not rubbish-filled like some parts of the city.
The car turned down a long residential street. Neighbors chatted over chain-link fences; a pair of girls walked with arms linked, chewing gum and sharing a fashion magazine. I was reminded of what Alice and I might look like, walking down the hallways of Brighton High School… Focus, I reminded myself.
"You know this person?" the driver asked.
"Yes, she is my friend," I said.
"Okay."
I smiled; it was as though he didn't want me visiting someone dodgy or dangerous. To the driver who couldn't know better, I was a precious, vulnerable guest of the hotel. This set me remembering my insecurities about Jacob, how I thought he wouldn't fall in love with me because I wasn't a fragile flower to be protected.
Then I remembered how he'd kissed (loved!) just such a vulnerable human. Bella. He must have wanted to protect her from vampires, from her then-clumsy self, from the things that might hurt her… and a fresh film of tears blurred my vision as I realized he would never have those feelings towards me. How could he, when I was so strong?
But no. I was here in Rio, anonymous, looked after by my normal human driver, away from the weight of perfection. I swallowed back my nascent tears and opened up to the glory of the moment.
Glory, in this independence, as I rolled forward into a foreign neighborhood on a task of my own choosing.
"Here," said the driver, stopping the car in front of a green cement-brick house. It had a short cyclone fence surrounding a patchy front lawn, a single wooden post upholding a porch roof, and a crumbling cement walkway. The barred front window was open; a curtain hung limp inside.
"Can you wait for me?" I asked.
"I am hired by the day," he said. "Yes."
"Obrigado," I thanked him. I opened the door and swung my sandaled feet onto the gravel.
I stood up, looked around the golden-dusty street, took a deep breath.
The trace of a scent sent a thrill of alarm racing down my spine. My hands curled into claws, my back went rigid, I bared my teeth.
Vampire.