Chapter Fifty Seven

Megan

I knew I was different, I'd always been different which meant I was special, but being special could be lonely. Mom and dad did all they could and I had a great extended family but I missed having friends of my own age. Someone I could share my secrets with and talk about things, like music, books, all the things you wanted a friend to share with.

So, when they suggested a trip to Italy I jumped at the chance. I knew there were no kids in Volterra but there were strangers, new people to meet and maybe someone I could connect with. I'd heard about Jane and Alec, the twins and knew that they were teenagers even if they'd been that way for centuries. Perhaps I would find I got on with Jane. At least I wouldn't have to watch everything I said and did like I had to if I were around humans.

I guess I sound like an ungrateful or spoiled brat and I don't mean to. I had a great life with wonderful parents and I was given everything I might need to help me as I matured so quickly. I just felt a little outside the norm, I didn't truly belong in either world. I wasn't a human or vampire but a strange mixture of both.

My parents had told me that when I was grown up I would have to choose whether to remain a hybrid or become a full vampire. I liked having a foot in both worlds but at least as a vampire, I would truly belong somewhere and that seemed important.

I logged onto my laptop and checked my emails, I did have some online friends, it was easy to pretend when you weren't face to face and there were a few messages waiting for me but not the one I was hoping and praying for.

No one had heard from Darius since he left to find Caius, not a letter, not a call, not a message, although I had sent him several dozen...at least. I wasn't sure if I was deluding myself thinking that he was still out there. Had he really committed suicide after getting revenge on Caius? Had he gone into the darkness to join Sara? Even thinking that hurt so I pushed it away. I had been crazy to think that he cared about me, I was a child and he was a grown man but I thought, I had been so sure, that there was a connection between us.

I glanced up at the portrait of Sara that was still hanging in my room opposite my bed. She had been so beautiful that I could understand why Darius would want to rejoin her, but I didn't think it worked that way. I wasn't at all sure that you could hope to meet back up with someone you loved once you died. Surely if there was an afterlife then after so long Sara would have found someone rather than wait alone for an eternity?

Shaking my head I pushed such thoughts to the back of my mind and started on a reply to Misha's email about the latest book we were reading together. I liked the English classic writers but had agreed to try her favorite, a Japanese author. Yoko Ogawa's The Housekeeper and the Professor in the original Japanese.

I loved languages and found them easy to learn. So far I could speak Italian, French, German, Spanish, Russian and Greek fluently and I was learning Mandarin Chinese and Japanese but I'd put these to one side to learn Latin and Arabic. Mainly because I knew that a lot of the documents in the Volturi archives would be in these tongues.

It would be good to see Grandpa and Nanna again. They had moved to Italy to be closer to Aunt Alice who was getting better but mom had said that she would probably never be well enough to leave, for her own safety.

I wondered if I would finally get to meet dad's first wife. It was a nerve-wracking thought. I knew she had wanted me dead more than once, but it wasn't her fault and I had forgiven her.

Uncle Garrett still kept in touch although not as much since he had become involved with Andrea. He'd met her while rock climbing in Colorado and they had hit it off. I liked her because she was funny but she wasn't very bright so the conversation was a little laboured. I guess she and Garrett didn't talk much or he didn't mind that she wasn't interested in anything other than hiking and climbing. When I got married I wanted a man who could talk about everything and anything and was willing to learn new things. Darius was like that…

When I finished replying to my messages I checked a program I had written myself, one that scanned the internet for any trace of activity from Darius. If he was still out there he would be using computers, it's what he did, and if so he must leave footprints. I just had to find those footprints and follow them back to him.

What I would do if I did find him I couldn't decide. Would he be willing to talk to me if I found him? Or would he just vanish once more? I should leave it be, I knew that in my head but my heart, well, I had never learned to shut out my feelings and I didn't try now.

When I went down to cook dinner I found mom looking through a box I hadn't seen before. It was a medium-sized plastic box with a lid which lay beside it on the coffee table. Looking up, mom smiled.

"This arrived from Rosalie this morning, she found it among my dad's things that were stored in the police station strong room at Forks. I guess they didn't know where to send the stuff and couldn't bear to destroy it."

I was even more interested now, wondering what the box contained.

"Would you like to see a picture of your Grandpa Swan?"

I hurried over and took the photo she held out, Studying at it eagerly.

There were three people in the photograph. A man wearing a police uniform, a young girl, and a boy who looked native American.

My Grandpa was handsome with dark curly hair and a moustache. He looked kinda uncomfortable posing for a photo but smiled. I liked the look of him and once more wished he was still alive so I could meet him.

"Is that you, mom?"

"Yes, you can see we're alike in many ways."

Mom was right, I looked very much like her.

"Who is the boy?"

"That's Jake, Jacob Black. My friend when I was little and visited with my dad in Forks.``

I stared at her in shock, "Jake? Isn't that the man who tried to kill dad?"

"Yes. I'm afraid things got really complicated when I grew up and got involved with Edward. Jake is a shapeshifter and they hate vampires. When I was growing up we were best friends."

I didn't want to hear that mom and dad's attacker had been friends, but like she had told me before they got married, life is complicated.

"What else was in the box?"

She gestured for me to take a look. There wasn't a lot. His badge, Chief of Police, his driver's licence, some books, a watch, a bundle of legal papers, some more photographs, and a bundle of letters tied with a lace.

Taking it the photographs I flicked through them. There were more of mom, some with Jake and some with a woman holding a baby and looking really proud. Looking over my shoulder mom pointed, "That's me as a baby with both my parents."

"That's my grandma? She was pretty. Why did she leave Grandpa? He must have been very upset about losing you both."

"My mother was what you could call a free spirit. She wasn't good at being a mom and looking after a husband and home. I guess she just couldn't settle down."

"What happened to her?"

"I don't know. We lost touch after I got married and it was less complicated if it stayed that way."

I nodded my understanding but it seemed weird that I had a grandmother I had never met, one who didn't even know I existed.

"Do you think she would like me?"

"Yes, she would but she wouldn't have been around for you. Mom lived for herself, everything else came second, well everything except her husband Phil and he goes along with whatever she wants."

There it was, another relationship that had crashed and burned, first-time relationships never seemed to last and maybe I would be better off staying alone.

Darius

I drove down yet another fucking highway unable to settle anywhere yet knowing exactly where I wanted to be. Somewhere I had no right, somewhere I shouldn't even be thinking about. Here I was, almost two years since Caius died at my hands and I felt no peace, no connection with anything. It was as if I had just lost Sara all over again. That same numbness, the same aching loss, and that same feeling of helplessness.

I glanced at the laptop on the passenger seat, my silent partner riding shotgun. Computers had been my one companion, cyberspace my home, yet now even that was denied me. I could have chanced it, I was fucking good at remaining untraceable, no one had ever tracked me down on the web, yet I couldn't trust myself to surf any longer, not even on the dark web. That was not the kind of place I would want any young and innocent girl to surf and if I appeared there it might be enough to persuade her to jump in. I knew my skills were good but are they good enough to allow me to remain a ghost when one expert might be hunting me down. The only other person who came close to me in both computer savvy and cold-blooded determination.

I had driven to the Whitlock place, had gotten as far as the road leading to the track before stopping. I would have been just in time to see Bella and the Major married, to see her again but something stopped me. I jammed hard down on the brakes and sat staring out the windshield.

This was wrong in so many ways. She was a child with a crush on a guy who had helped her. She had paid me back many times over and now it was my turn to pay the bill. Did she remind me of Sara? Yeah in some ways but she was much more stubborn, more driven. Did I feel connected to her for that reason? Was I trying to get Sara back? No, Megan could never be Sara, no one could ever take her place, but there was room in a man for more than one love and although I didn't feel desire or even love for Megan yet I also knew that I could when she grew up if I allowed myself. And that led to two important questions, should I? And did I have the right to expect her to love me in return after all she'd been through and knowing she would find boys her own age sooner or later?

This wasn't how I had imagined my life after Caius' death, I wasn't a wanderer any longer. I wanted to stop, to have a place I could make my own. I was tempted. Megan was still a child, could she really track me down? Sure she was good with computers but she didn't have contacts or the wherewithal to comb the whole country to find me.

I almost convinced myself when this tiny voice of reason told me that probably wasn't good enough. If she was going to have the opportunity to live a normal life, find a human boy and fall in love, then she had to believe I was gone for good.

The only way I could stop and settle down was if I moved abroad, somewhere she wouldn't expect to find me, or any vampire for that matter. I'd called the United States home for the past couple of hundred years so maybe it was time for a change.

I pulled over and grabbed the world atlas I had bought a couple of days ago. Maybe this had been at the back of my mind for some time.

I closed my eyes and lifted the atlas up then let it drop out the window. I peered down at it. The page flapped in the wind and then slowly dropped to reveal a map of Greece. Oh, come on! Well, best of three then.

I opened the door and bent to retrieve the atlas before repeating my actions. This time the page showed me Italy. It seemed the Gods were against me. As I picked it up for the second time I whispered 'third time lucky' and dropped it again. This time I smiled as I looked at the open page. Now that was more like it. Russia, a country I had only visited a couple of times and there were plenty of wide-open spaces with little or no population. I also had a choice of climates, from subtropical to arctic. Well, I guess I should go subtropical as the least desirable for a vampire and therefore safer from anyone hunting me but the arctic appealed more.

Throwing the atlas on top of the boxes on the back seat I turned the car and headed towards the closest airport. I would need access to a computer to arrange visas and tickets but it wouldn't take too long and was a risk worth taking. Once in Russia and using that language I should be pretty safe from Megan. I sighed, I really must stop using her name, every time I spoke or thought it I wanted to see her and self-torture was not a good sport for anyone.