The Jaguar Versus the Wolf

Chapter 23 - I Killed Her?

Orbiting Satellites Book Two, Chapter 23 - Found Bodies companion


"Krissy, I asked you to leave." What was she still doing here?

I know I was the one to initiate things, inviting her over, but after we start kissing, and clothes came off, and we were about to take things further I just couldn't go through with it. Worst of all I was a coward and practically ran out of the room. But not before apologizing and asking her to please be gone before I returned. That was an hour ago. She was still lying on the bed, naked, right where I left her.

"Krissy!" I called again a little louder. She still didn't even move. Maybe she fell asleep. Going over to the bed to shake her I noticed there was some bruising on her arms and neck. Had I done that? I didn't think I'd been that rough. But I wouldn't even need to; just using my enhanced vampire strength I easily could have hurt her. Bosta! I should have been more careful.

"Krissy," I tried shaking her gently this time. Still no answer. I shook a little harder and her head flopped to the side, causing her eyelids to burst open. That's when I realized she was dead.

OH NO!

I started going on automatic. This wasn't the first dead body in a motel room for me. Though it was true, most of the time in Brazil the hotels I frequented normally were so low class and dingy that a dead body every now and then was practically to be expected. However, here, no matter how bad the motel was, once she was discovered it would mean trouble for me, and it's not like I could just leave her in the room with me. On the bright side I did have experience disposing of bodies, lots and lots of experience. Neither I, nor my Aunt Huilen, wanted to bring the Volturi down upon us.

I had to wait until dark to make sure I wasn't seen but after re-dressing her and making sure nothing of hers was left in the room I took her out and disposed of the body. Not wanting to risk her remains being found I went into the woods, gathered some fallen tree branches and built a bonfire. In just over an hour everything was gone. Venom was highly flammable and raised the temperature of a normal fire by several hundred degrees so I spit on the pile to ensure no bones or teeth remained. Even the buckles on her belt melted.

As I ran back to the motel I remembered that she had driven here. Crap! How could I be so stupid? Her car was still in the parking lot… right in front of the door to my room. I ran in and searched everywhere but couldn't find the car keys. They must have been in her purse, which was now a pile of ash.

I'll have to figure out how to hot wire the thing later, then roll it off a cliff or something. I don't know. This was all just too much. My brain hurt.

How could this have happened? We barely did anything. And I could have sworn she was still alive when I left. Clearly I was wrong.

I was wrapped in a cloak of self pity. I had killed that young woman, whether I intended to or not. Before I met the Cullens I used to think I was a monster for killing my own mother as I bit my way through her abdomen into this world. They made me rethink that. But now it was confirmed. I was a monster, bringing death and destruction wherever I went.

I tried going to sleep, it was still early but I wanted to put today behind me. Hopefully things would look better in the morning. But try as I might I couldn't fall asleep. And when I eventually did I was plagued by nightmares. I couldn't stay in this room anymore. Everything reminded me of what I'd done.

One thing I was sure about was that there was another dingy motel one town over I could stay at while I figured out what to do. I didn't want to use the Cullens credit cards, though, not so soon after I had binged buying so much last time. Instead I snuck into the management office and found a room that had been vacant for months. That probably meant there was something wrong with it and the owner was too cheap to fix it, only renting it out when and if the place was near capacity. If I was quiet and only entered and left when it was dark I would be able go undetected for some time. The room was covered in mold, toxic to humans, but it wouldn't affect me.

It took a few tries but I managed to get Krissy's car started, but not a lot fit into a sedan so even with it I had to make several trips. Slowly I moved my recent purchases - the mattress, fridges, freezer, microwave, and everything else, from one place to the other. When I was done I made sure to get rid of it far away – I couldn't risk her car being found anywhere near the town I had been in, or the one I dumped the woman's body, or the place I was now in.

I thought everything was going good but once I was settled, the place painted, spackled, and cleaned I had time to think again. And thoughts of what I had done returned. Ten days later I was hiding another body. At least last time I knew Krissy's name. I didn't even recognize this girl.

How could this have happened? Not only had I no memory of bringing her back here, or killing her, including everything that must have happened in between but I don't even remember ever meeting her. Yet here I was… waking up with a dead girl beside me.

I wanting to know the name of this girl I killed. And fed from. And screwed… so before getting rid of the body I swiped her wallet.

Her Virginia issued license said her name was Andrea Carter but I wanted to know more. What was she doing in New Hampshire? What had she done for a living? Did she have a family?

I took out my phone. I could do this. I know I could. I had seen Renesmee use her flat computer to look things up, when she wanted to learn more about whatever subject she had been interested in, a dozen times. But she had on occasion also done it on her phone. It was all I had; I just needed to remember what buttons she'd pressed. Wait... there were no buttons on my phone. This thing had... (What did she call them?) Icons. Now I had another problem. I never bothered to watch which one she pressed to find information out. I knew which one I needed to press to answer the phone when it rang but beyond that I never bothered to learn what the rest of them did.

It took me some time but through trial-and-error I eventually found one where I could type in questions and answers would pop up. An hour later I had typed in the young woman's name and found a few things out about her.

I wasn't used to technology and it took awhile to figure out what I was doing but I kept googling, kept finding out more and more about her life, yet none of it told me what she was doing here, or where we could have met, or why she ended up in my bed. I did find a missing persons report. But it was from six months ago. None of this made sense.

After awhile, not being able to find anything else out, I gave up and started the moving process again. I didn't find any keys on her, and believe me I searched, so I had to carry everything on foot to a new motel. Even though I moved at night, and tried to stick to the woods as much as possible, I still had to partially travel on some roads and got a few strange looks from some passersby.

Two weeks later there was another dead girl's body and another new motel room. I was starting to doubt my sanity. This was not possible, having no memory of ever meeting these women, yet bringing them back to my motel again and again. I couldn't have done this and yet how else could I explain the bodies?

I was going to dump the body after I finished searching her pockets for her wallet, when I smelled something. It was faint, but it was definitely there.

If the pattern held in exactly two weeks another woman's body would be found in my motel room but this time, now that I knew that I wasn't responsible, I'd be ready. I knew what I had to do.

It seemed only right to move again now. I didn't want them catching on that I had found out. But this time when I rented one room, I moved into another. If I was going to catch whoever was doing this I needed to throw them off, but didn't want to do anything seemingly different to spook them off or make them change their plans in any way. I needed as much of an upper hand as I could get. That was the only way I could figure out to stop this.

It was about two weeks between each murder so I wasn't sure exactly when it was going to happen but I made sure not to sleep from 12 days after the last body. Right now I was exhausted. I hadn't slept for three days, keeping myself awake on a combination of adrenaline, caffeine, and pure sheer will.

It was after midnight before they came. I was pretending to sleep on the bed when I heard him approach. Him and the girl.

Using the element of surprise I jumped up and tackled Joham to the ground. At least I think it was him. I thought it had been his scent I had caught, but now I wasn't so certain. Whoever they were they were stronger than me and I knew I couldn't win against a full Vampire, but I was prepared for this. They couldn't carrying a body and fight me off at the same time, it worked in my favor and I was able to quickly block him in, knocking the dresser down in front of him, knowing it wouldn't hold him for long, but a fire would.

Using the small flamethrower I bought at the hardware store last week, I lit the walls, the mattress, the carpet, anything that would catch fire quickly, before pulling the fire alarm, grabbing the girl and running out the door. I thought I saw her move, there was a chance she might still be alive.

A quick pulse check, as I ran down the hallway, revealed that I was wrong. I couldn't be seen running with a dead body and people were starting to come out of their rooms. The only thing I could think of was to dump her in the one place I knew people wouldn't look right away. I ducked into the room I had officially rented at the end of the hall, knowing it would be empty, and left her on the bed. Someone would probably find her soon, but right now I was more concerned about getting out of there.

While I didn't enjoy the fact that I tried to kill my own father (maybe) I also knew the probability was slim. If it was him I didn't know why he was doing this to me. Was it some sort of delayed payback for me sending the Volturi to him years ago, and now he was trying to do the same to me? It was the only thing I could think of.

Bosta! My plan was a complete disaster. I was homeless again, hadn't stopped my father, the motel was now a crime scene, I lost all of my processions in there – clothes, food, appliances, etc… and the body would be found in the room that was registered to me, or at least the fake identity I had used to check into the motel.

I checked into a new motel, using the other credit card, and got some new things but then two weeks later, right on queue it happened again.

I was a complete failure.

Walking to the next town, looking for another new motel, feeling sorry for myself I was debating whether or not I should even bother. Whatever Joham, or whoever, was attempting to do he was bound to be successful sooner or later. Maybe I should just go to the Volturi and get it over with myself.

Suddenly a car sped down the street and came screeching to a stop fifty feet in front of me, then it slowly backed up till it was slowly cruising alongside me on the road.

"Nahuel, I've been looking for you," my sister said to me from her car window.

Maysun? I shouldn't have been surprised. Wherever my father was Maysun and Serena were never far behind.

"Where's Serena?" I said stopping in my tracks and half heartedly looking in the back seat, since I couldn't see her in the front. It was only a slim chance she was lying down, but I checked none-the-less. She wasn't there.

"She's home with father. Aren't you going to ask about him? He misses you."

"If he wants to talk to me he can come find me. Leaving dead bodies in my bed is not the way to go about getting my attention," I growled.

"What are you talking about?" she innocently asked.

Fine, if she wanted to play games I would indulge, and went on to tell her how I had gotten a whiff of Joham on one of the bodies before setting up my trap with the fire the other night. Her showing up here all but confirmed it was him.

"If the scent was that weak then you could be wrong. And either you saw him, or you didn't, and you have no proof."

"I saw him." I know I did. I think. Sure he was wearing some sort of head to toe environmental suit that blocked his face, and the rest of his skin, probably so I wouldn't smell him, but it was him. What other Vampire would do this?

She shook her head. "No you didn't." Liar! She was either in on it and toying with me, or wasn't actively in on it but knew what he was doing and going along with it. Or she was in some sort of major denial. After a moment she sighed, then smiled. "Look, I don't want to fight, my darling little brother. I've come all the way here to see you. Can we just forget about him for a while? Whatever happened I had nothing to do with it."

I didn't know whether to trust her or not. Normally she and Joham were pretty tight. That's to say that my sisters, not Jennifer, but the other two would do anything our father asked of them. But I figured that if I was nice to her and didn't argue, even if she was lying, I would be able to find something out so I decided to play along.

"I'm sorry. It's nice to see you," I said to her with as big of a fake smile as I could give.

"That's better. Now where are you headed?"

I told her the name of the next roach motel.

"Don't suppose I can talk you into upgrading to something a little bit more descent, could I?"

"Why, I'm just going to be forced to find another one in two more weeks." I was trying to keep the anger out of my voice but I knew it snuck in anyway.

Maysun shrugged. "Whatever. Come on," she said flinging the passenger door open. "I'll give you a ride."

We drove a couple towns over and found another crappy motel. Since she was with me I didn't sneak into another room but used the Cullen card again to pay for it. If Maysun found me that meant that she was probably going to tell Joham, which meant I was going to be leaving soon anyway. When the two weeks were up he either left a new body, or tried to kill me for what I done to him, or dragged me with him wherever he was going, or… who knows. The possibilities were endless. Either way the police finding me would probably be a best case scenario.

While cleaning, my sister and I started making plans to go to a few stores and buy me some new clothes, since I had lost all of mine in the fire.

"Maybe you should have picked a less popular motel," my sister said to me as I finished cleaning the sink in the bathroom.

"Why's that?" I don't really care how many people are here. Most motels had a few people staying in them, and were even full every now and then no matter how run-down they looked.

"There are people coming this way. They're smiling," she said in disbelief. "I think you've got some friendly neighbors this time. Or curious ones. Could be undercover cops," she suggested. "Oh, that one's kinda cute, for a human I mean."

"I'll get rid of them," I said coming out of the bathroom.

"Don't. Let's have some fun first. Besides I'm kinda thirsty. When's the last time you fed?" That wasn't going to happen but before I even had a chance to let her know of my change in diet she ran into the bathroom, mumbling about how her hair was a mess. I was going to have to get rid of whoever it was quickly, not needed any more deaths on my hands.

Opening the door I saw the last person I expected to see standing there. "Renesmee…" And then I saw her dog behind her. "What are you doing here, with J-"

"Darling, could you hand me my bag to freshen up a bit first," Maysun called, obviously not noticing or caring that I had already opened the door.

Before I could say another word Renesmee ran and the dog growled at me. Typical.

"Hey, where'd our meals go?" my sister asked when she came out and saw the empty room.

After quickly telling her who they were and what happened, at least what I thought happened (I still wasn't actually clear on that part) I wanted desperately to go after Renesmee but Maysun convinced me otherwise. Whatever she came here for she obviously wasn't ready to talk. My going after her, with her dog in the way, wasn't the smartest plan. And if they were here to try and get me back I wasn't sure if I wanted that.

"Why don't you call her?"

If you don't think she'll talk to me in person, what makes you think she will on the phone?"

"Then leave her a message. She'll call, or come over again when she's ready."

Not trusting that she wouldn't just delete any voicemail I left her I called her father instead. I knew he wouldn't stop until he had delivered my message. Not that I had anything important to say. I just wanted to make sure she was okay.

"Edward, hello, it's Nahuel." He didn't say anything so I continued. "Renesmee was just here but she ran off before she said anything. I just wanted to let you know, to make sure she gets home alright."

"She took off?" He seemed surprised. "Was Jacob with her?"

When was he not with her? "He ran after her when she took off into the woods."

"I'm sure she'll be fine then," he said, his voice rife with annoyance.

"You wouldn't happen to know why she came over, do you?"

"As a matter of fact I do," he told me and then went on to explain how she came as an official representative of the Cullen household, to remind me not to hunt in their territory.

"What?" He knew I only ate human food now.

"Don't even Nahuel. The motel fire made the news; we know about the body that was discovered in your motel room. Surely you don't think we are going to just let something like that go, do you?"

I was going to say something, deny that it was my doing but he kept talking before I could even respond to the allegations.

"We understand what you did is perfectly normal for our kind but Renesmee was supposed to tell you... to remind you not to hunt in the area. Please. You know slips like this put all of us in danger."

If only he knew the truth, but I didn't think he'd believe me, so instead of arguing I just said "Fine" and hung up. What else could I do? I wasn't going to convince him over the phone.

At least now I knew why Renesmee had come over and it wasn't to try to convince me to get back together with her and the dog. But I wasn't sure if I was happy about that or not.