FINDING HOME
SUMMARY – Renee Dwyer was Tony Stark's half-sister. When Renee is murdered in her home in Jacksonville, Tony knows something isn't right. He is distraught and needs answers. When his digging unearths several more related deaths and a niece he never knew existed, how will he react? Can Bella overcome the horrors of her past and make a new life with the only family she has left?
MARVEL'S AVENGERS X TWILIGHT CROSSOVER…
COPYRIGHT DISCLAIMER – All Avenger's characters belong to Marvel Comics, and all Twilight Saga characters belong to Stephanie Meyer. I own nothing, and no copyright infringement is intended.
CHAPTER 9
"Like father like son," Bella said, her laughter cut off when his eyes widened in surprise and horror.
"Sammy phased?" Josh sputtered his question.
"Yeah," Bella confirmed, squeezing his hand firmly, "Sam was the first one to phase after the Cullens returned to Forks, though he certainly wasn't the last. He's the alpha of the pack; you'd be so proud of him. That man saved my life more times than I care to admit."
"I think I really need to hear the rest of this story now," Josh wasn't sure which part of her statement had him more worried. His son was a wolf and had become involved in the age old fight against vampires, a fight he had left his home and his family to keep him safely away from? Or his mate had been endangered by his enemies often enough to be closely acquainted with his son's pack, and owe them her life?
"Right," she agreed, taking a few calming breaths before diving back into it, "The long and short of it is Edward and I fell in love, I discovered the truth about vampires, and the Cullens more or less accepted me into their coven. Then a chance-encounter with a small coven of nomadic human-drinkers led me to being nearly killed right in front of him. He very nearly left me after that, believing that he needed to keep me safe from his world, but I convinced him to stay. He believed I was his mate, but hated what he was too much to change me, so he was constantly having to step in to protect me, and he hated himself for adding to the dangers in my life.
On the night of my 18th birthday, there was an accident and Edward's brother, Jasper, attacked me. I was fine," she quickly reassured him when he actually growled at that, "But that was the last straw for Edward. He broke up with me, in a rather cruel fashion, and the entire coven left Forks without even saying goodbye.
I was a wreck emotionally after they left, but a close friend, Jake, helped me deal with everything. He pulled me out of my depression and helped me get my life back on track. What neither of us knew at the time was that one of the remaining two nomads from the coven that attacked me, Victoria, was planning her revenge, as she blamed me for her mate's death at the hands of the Cullens.
She tried for months to get past Sam so she could kill me, but he ran her off every time. Unfortunately, her continued presence in the area started the phase in the others, and the pack grew rather quickly. Jake was among the first to transform. And of course, I couldn't keep from sticking my nose in his business when he started distancing himself from me, so eventually I discovered the truth about the pack as well."
"And that didn't send you running the other direction?" Josh interrupted, surprised, and still reeling from everything she was telling him, "After everything you went through with the vampires, you found out your best friend was really a shape-shifter, and you didn't run for the hills?"
Bells looked at him strangely for a moment before she spoke, clearly upset about something, "The wolves are protectors. Sam, Jake, you… They fought the creatures that were hunting me. They kept me safe. And for the first time in a very long time, I had someone I could share all of my secrets with. Jake was already more than a best friend to me, and I wasn't going to turn my back on him because he turned out to be even more incredible than I had originally believed."
"You were in love with him," Josh correctly surmised.
"Yeah, I was," she whispered, a single tear escaping as her voice cracked slightly, and Josh immediately recognized that Jake was yet another person she loved who had been lost. What the hell had happened?
"The pack accepted me, even though I wasn't Jake's imprint, they saw me as family, and they kept me safe," she continued, and Josh's eyes about bugged out of their sockets when she said, 'imprint'. She knew. She knew everything. Ah, hell…
"But Victoria was determined," she continued unaware of the impact her words were beginning to have on the wolf beside her, "When she couldn't get to me, she tried to send in a friend, Laurent, the third member of her former coven, hoping that the wolves wouldn't recognize his scent and he might be able to get to me. It very nearly worked, but Sam recognized his scent from the early days and brought the pack in time to save my life and kill Laurent."
"But she didn't stop did she?" Josh pressed, knowing whatever it was the haunted her so was coming soon.
"She realized she couldn't get around the pack, so she decided to go through them," Bella explained, "And for that she would need more fighters. So for nearly six months, she terrorized Seattle, turning more than thirty newborn vampires, and killing hundreds more to keep them fed while she trained them. It was an army born and bred for the sole purpose of killing me…"
"Jesus," Josh couldn't believe what he was hearing, but it also made a sick sort of sense given everything he knew so far, the pieces beginning to fall into place for him.
"The impending threat was enough to force even younger wolves to turn as the pack needed to keep growing," she told him, "But even then, they were sorely outnumbered. Sam, Jake, and I decided that there was only one way that we would have a chance at defeating them, but it was a risky play.
My blood is especially potent, and acts as a sort of natural lure for vampires, plus Victoria was so desperate to get to me that my scent would distract her, so we set ourselves a trap. A trail of my scent, made stronger by my blood, was laid through the woods we expected them to approach through, ending in a meadow, where the wolves were lying in wait.
By then, my father had accidentally been exposed to the secret when one of the wolves phased in our backyard to kill a vampire scout that would have killed me or Charlie. And he was actually incredibly helpful. He was able to get his hands on incendiary ammunition. Their skin is like marble, but with armor piercing rounds, hollow-points, and incendiaries, he could pack a hell of a punch. He taught me to shoot, and the two of us, along with his three deputies, Billy Black and Harry Clearwater, helped the wolves pick them off from a ridge above the battlefield."
Josh couldn't hide his shock at this development, his mouth flopping open like a fish, "You… you killed vampires?" he asked, incredulous.
"Yeah. Quite a few actually. The seven of us helped even up the odds," she explained, "We never would have won otherwise, but with us there, everyone on our side survived, though there were more than a few injuries."
"But if you won…?" Josh let his question hang open-ended, but she knew what he was really asking her. Why had she run? Who was after her? What had happened to her family?
"We destroyed the army," Bella explained, "But Victoria escaped. When she realized the battle was turning in our favor, she abandoned her army and made for the cliffs in La Push. The wolves followed, but she escaped into the water."
"But she came back, didn't she?" Josh pressed, needing to know exactly what was after his mate.
"Yes," Bella admitted, her eyes glazed over as they filled with the painful memory, "But not right away. She watched from a distance, planned everything out to the last detail, and then waited for her opportunity to strike.
She killed my mother, step-father, and half-sister first. They had moved to Jacksonville, and I had hoped they were far enough away that she wouldn't go after them…
Then she killed my father. I was the one to find his body, and I was alone. I know that she was still there, watching, close enough to have killed me that night, but she let me live because she wanted me to suffer and killing those I loved was the most painful way she could think to hurt me. I knew that the wolves would have taken me in, but I couldn't bear the thought of anyone else dying because of me, so that night I wrote letters for Sam and Jake and the rest of the pack, and I ran.
Jake followed me of course," she was crying at this point, and seeing her like this was tearing Josh apart, "Two of the others from the pack came with him to try and find me and bring me home, but Victoria found them before they found me. She killed all three of them. It took her almost a year to catch up with me, but when she did, she didn't just kill me out right. She… I was…"
"She tortured you," Josh whispered in a broken, pained voice as he finally realized where she'd gotten all of her scars. The bite marks… He'd never put it together before because he'd never seen what a vampire bite looked like on human flesh, but now it all made sense, and he felt his stomach turn. The woman he loved had been burned, beaten, cut, fed from, and who knew what else, and he hadn't been there to protect her…
Josh suddenly stood, coming around the small table to pull her into his arms, holding her tightly to his chest, as if to reassure himself that she was here with him, and that she was really alright.
"Shhh," she cooed, burying her face in his chest and returning his embrace just as fervently, "I'm alive, right here with you. I'm ok. I'm safe, here with you. I survived. It's ok." Her words repeated again and again as they held each other and cried, but they worked to calm him some, and after what felt like a very long time, he pulled back enough to look into her eyes and swore to himself that they would never be filled with such sorrow and pain ever again.
"I'll always keep you safe Bella. I promise," he vowed, "No one will ever hurt you like that again. For as long as I draw breath, I will always protect you."
12 HOURS LATER
Bella was about thirty feet from the bar when she began to notice the lumps of burning stone strewn throughout the property, and her heart nearly stopped as she recognized them for exactly what they were. Shredded vampires.
Josh must have been attacked while she was gone and had killed them. But how had the bar caught fire? Had the flames from the bodies simply spread out of control? Or had someone set it intentionally?
And where the hell was Josh?!
She opened her mouth to call out to him again, but before the sound could escape, she felt a strong hand pull a cloth over her mouth and nose. Chloroform?
She felt herself being lifted in strong, cold arms as she began to lose consciousness, and she felt the wind rush by her as her attacker began running at a superhuman speed, but just before everything went black, she heard something in the distance behind them.
A wolf's howl.
