Thirty-One

Nadia Awinita preferred to be on the run. The concept of being tied down was like a wound to her, and she preferred to follow her own path. She preferred sunrises in Colorado and sunsets in Idaho. She likened the chasing of a vampire to the same feeling of elation that an athlete felt after winning a game. Testosterone and sweat and blood. If she closed her eyes, she could still feel that hot lingering satisfaction, even as she sat in her underwear, typing notes into a laptop, in a dingy motel room.

Somewhere down through the town the Snake River drifted past the road, a long lazy loop, just thinking about it made Nadia feel at home.

When her cell phone rang, she grunted in acknowledgment, her fingers still typing away on the keyboard, the sound was heavy like rainfall. After the second ring her eyes slid toward the display screen, and when she recognized the caller, her fingers immediately stilled.

Billy Black's name was on the phone screen. Spelled out William as her grandmother had once had it scrawled in her black leather-bound address book. Nadia hesitated, only for a moment. The briefest thread of apprehension, before she swiped her thumb across the screen to connect.

"Yes," she said by way of greeting. It was neither a question or a sensory greeting. If Billy Black was calling her than he wanted something.

There was a pause on the other end of the phone. A heartbeat of silence. "Nadia?" It was a question, but Nadia knew that he knew she had answered the phone.

Nadia's response was short. Clipped. "That's right."

"I was sorry to hear about your grandmother's passing."

It had been two years since Darlene died, but who's was counting. Nadia drummed her fingers against her knee, fingers tapping against bare flesh, a rhythmic, one, two, three, one, two, three.

"How can I help you?" She finally asked.

Billy seemed momentarily frazzled. "Like I said, I was sorry to hear about Darlene's death."

Nadia raised an eyebrow, "Considering that she's been in the ground for a couple of years already, your condolences are giving me pause. Like I said, what can I do for you?"

"Vampire," Billy said simply.

The hairs on the back of Nadia's neck rose up. She scanned the room, as though the treat were ephemeral and could be easily neutralized. "The Cullen's?" Darlene had updated her on the situation two years ago before she died. There was a supernatural child, half human, half vampire. A spawn, Darlene had said, a messy complication that should have been aborted as soon as given breath to live.

Billy took a deep breath. Nadia could hear the shaky intake from the other end of the phone. She wondered if Billy had taken up smoking again, as Darlene said he did in his youth. "Yes."

"The child?"

Billy paused. "No, not a child any longer, a woman, practically. That's not what I called about."

What then? She wondered. Darlene had catalogued all of the covens in this area. Sybil Rafferty and her dangerous pet Allie in Santa Monica. Hopper and Gabriella in New Mexico. The Denali's in Alaska, even though Kate, one of the most dangerous ones was currently missing in action. The Chang's in Ohio and Patricia's daughter, somewhere roaming in the prairie states.

Nadia's jaw set. "Is this about Patricia's daughter? Let me assure you that I'm going to find her. She can't stay hidden for long."

Billy huffed a brittle laugh. "No, Patricia's daughter does not concern me right now. Though, if I do hear anything about her, I'll let you know."

Nadia sat back. "Thank you for that, I suppose."

"I'm calling because another vampire is with the Cullen's."

"Is it Sybil?" She asked. Nadia knew that Jasper and Sybil were close. A century ago, they had both been sired by Maria to fight in her endless territory wars in the south.

"No," he said, and she could hear him swallow before he continued, "It's one of the Volturi. Alec, Jane's—"

"—Brother," Nadia finished for him. She was familiar with the dangerous youth.

"It appears he's defected from Aru's coven."

"Defected?" Nadia had never heard of such a thing. "Aro wouldn't let him live if he's defected. Aro doesn't take prisoners. He doesn't ask questions."

"The Cullen's believe that the boy is trustworthy. They've allowed him to join their coven, temporarily."

"Carlisle is even more of a fool, than I thought," she added.

Billy remained silent on the other end of the phone. Nadia wasn't sure if it was from assent or disagreement over what she had said.

"Are you," she struggled to fill the void of his silence. "Wanting to report him to the network?"

"No," Billy added. There was still hesitation in Billy's voice.

"I wanted to call on the rule of Taha Aki."

Nadia couldn't help the sharp inhale of breath that she took in. It was audible, and she regretted it as soon as she had made the noise. "It's been nearly half a century since the Quileute's asked that of the Shoshone."

"I remember," he explained. "It was my father who asked it of your grandmother when the Cullen's first came to our land."

"Taha Aki," she said, letting the words slip from her mouth, a soft sound, like the sigh of a women in the bedroom. Taha Aki was the name of their shared ancestor, the ancient Quileute chieftain who carried the wolf gene. According the legends, it was Taha Aki's wife, Chen-Oha, known only as the third wife, in the official legends, who's sacrifice allowed the cold woman to finally be killed by Taha Aki.

Chen-Oha was beloved of her people, and her sacrifice endures in the tribal legends, even now. What was lesser known, was the legend of Nyta, the second wife, a direct ancestress of Nadia herself. Before the cold ones attacked their village, Taha Aki sent Nyta away back to the Shoshone people on the Snake River, where she had once been a princess amongst her people. Little did he know that she carried the seed of his daughter in her womb. There's was meant to be a sacred union. As the Quileute's were said to be descended from wolves, the woman of the Shoshone were descended from ravens, and their women were capable of transforming as the Quileute's were.

"Nadia, are you there?"

She sniffed. "Yes, I'm here."

"I know you are occupied looking for Patricia's daughter, but I need you to come here."

"I understand, though I can't help but thinking that you have a larger problem with the Cullen's spawn. Your little woman, as you call her. I was under the impression that your son had imprinted on her."

Billy's voice deepened. "Yes, that is correct. Jacob has entangled himself with the Cullen's. I do not consider him my son any longer."

"Does that mean you will be the last chief for the family Black? Only two generations? No more prodigal son?"

"That's enough, Nadia."

She snickered. "Oh, how the mighty Black's have fallen."

"You're nothing like your grandmother," he warned. "Darlene took this seriously. She could handle the power of Taha Aki and the responsibilities of tracking the vampire covens. She was never a petulant little girl."

"Careful, Billy," she edged. "You still need my help, don't you? Insulting me would not be wise right now. Remember that you called me." She couldn't hide the cockiness from her voice. If she was going to do this, give up her life's work, she would make her displeasure about it known.

He was silent. And she reciprocated with her own quiet. It was a standoff. They were at a stalemate. She did not want to go to Forks, or fulfil an ancient pact between grieving ancestors. She believed strongly in what she was doing with Patricia's daughter and the rest. Hopper and Gabriella, especially, had been cowed into reclusiveness in New Mexico. She believed that this was the work that she meant for, not setting up shop in the tiniest of tiny towns, a strange hub for supernatural activity, and assisting Billy with his population problem.

"Are you aware," he finally said, breaking the silence. "That Kate has left the Denali coven?"

Nadia sat up straighter in her chair. She knew that Kate was not in Alaska. Her contacts along the network had revealed that much. She wondered if this was a ploy from Billy. "I don't see how that is possible. Kate and Irina would never separate from each other, and she and Garett are, well…" In her youth she would have called it corpse-fucking, but she supposed the more politically correct term would be "in a relationship."

"I assure you that she has."

Nadia raised an eyebrow, contemplating.

"I would like to report that to the network, then. Since I'm here."

She huffed. "I'll see if I can follow up with my contact in Alaska. See if she has any new intel." Casually, Nadia switched screens on her laptop to check her email. There was nothing new from Alaska.

"When can I expect to see you?" Billy asked.

She wanted to say, when hell freezes over, but instead, she said, "I can be there in two days."

"Driving?"

"Always. I'll see if I can do anything about your spawn problem, as well. Seems a shame to have a Quileute male—son of a chief, no less—imprinted on a vampire girl."

"She isn't a vampire girl," Billy argued.

"Close enough."

After Billy said goodbye, Nadia echoed it. Both hung on the line for an additional second, waiting the other one out. Hoping to be the one with the last word, even if that last word was staticky silence.

She could tell what Billy was doing, assessing her breathing and hoping to find that weakness in her veneer that made it so easy for him to manipulate people. Nadia didn't oblige. She kept her mouth shut and her breathing even. She could tell what he was thinking even though he was hundreds of miles away.

Finally, he gave up, and she heard the disconnect of the line. The sudden emptiness of her bedroom where she had taken the call felt chilling. For the last six months she had moved, motel to motel, hunting for Patricia's daughter, intervening when the Chang's tried, with unusual motivation, to bring another vampire into their fold. They had a penitent for housing homeless youths, and feeding from them, ensorcelling them with their unnatural charm, letting them exist as live-in food sources, sometimes for years at a time. To Nadia, the abuse was staggering, and she had interviewed more than a few survivors who claimed that the family beat and raped them as forms of punishment. Too many humans stayed in those conditions.

Hopper and Gabriella, likewise, took up a large portion of her time. She had software on her laptop that allowed her to track their movements from Oklahoma and Colorado. Their effortless trail of destruction. She was not keen on letting them retake ground that she had already taken from them.

This particular motel room reeked of stale tobacco and long-ago sex, but Nadia didn't mind it. The tobacco reminded her of her father, long dead now, and the sex, well, she didn't mind that at all. She pushed herself up from the bed, the plasticky sheets scraping across her unshaved leg. There was a full-size mirror on the bathroom door, spotted with white dots, unwashed, and she examined her reflection. She loved her native features, the beauty of her nose, and her long black hair. She had full breasts and hips. She was still wearing a tank top and underwear that she had slept in, the air conditioning was set to the lowest temperature, and the fan on high. She had been traveling alone for a long time and she wondered if she could pull this off successfully. Occasionally, she went to a local dive bar while she traveled, and would bring a drunk man back to her room. Sometimes they would run their hands up her leg and cringe at the idea that she wasn't hairless, but most of the time they were too horny and ready to fuck her to care.

There was little enough to pack. The only thing she really needed was her laptop. She had folders full of vampire profiles, each time a human was changed, she documented it. Each time a vampire set up shop in the states she made notes about it. Tracked them, as best she could.

Her grandmother, Darleen, had set up a network of trackers to assist the group with this, Nadia was very much not alone in this endeavor. But she was the only one left who was a direct dependent from Nyta. Her grandmother had died at the age of one-hundred and forty-seven, given birth four times, but still Nadia was the only living descendent left.

There was a duffel bag handing up in the closet. She opened the accordion doors, cringing a bit by the loud squeak they had made. She had only been here for two days, trying to track the latest sighting of Patricia's daughter, and for the most part she remained unpacked. It was a small thing to pull on her skin tight jeans, cover her full breasts up with a baggy t-shirt. She pulled her toiletries from the bathroom sink and piled them on top of her clothes. The checkout process was easy enough, the high schooler manning the front desk yawned while she swiped Nadia's credit card, board with everything, apparently.

The jeep was one of her prized possessions. It was the lightest of baby blue shades, a custom color that she had picked out of a sample book at a dealership in Boise years ago. Nadia had graduated high school and promptly purchased the car with the tiny stipend of cash that her father had given her years ago. It had built in Wi-Fi, which was priceless to her, on the nights that she slept on the road, rather than checking in somewhere. She needed internet access to communicate with the other trackers across the country, and update her notes. At times it was an endless, dauntless task.

The trip took two days. Nadia kept to the road as much as possible, and slept in the driver's seat when she got tired. Stealing a few hours of sleep in the afternoons and continuing on through the night. She made her way through Oregon, sliding along the northern tip of the state near Pendleton before driving through southern Washington, sprawling with dusty farms before making her way to Western Washington where the deep soggy green of wet rainforests unfolded before her. It was beautiful country; she couldn't deny it. She could imagine what her ancestress, Nyta, might have thought, as her family transported her via canoe down the Snake River, seeing the brown and sage of the Idaho country change to the vivid green's, the colors both warm and wet from the rain, for the first time.

In her mind Nadia pictured Nyta as a girl, similar to herself in stature and frame. Opening her arms wide to the cliff faces of La Push beach, extending them as wide as she could before taking the steep hill at a run, pushing off with her toes at the last minute and finally, arms changing to wings, she took flight.

She did not want to stay in Forks, the idea made her want to gag. Instead, she got a motel room in Shuwah, right outside of the Forks city limits. Shuwah, was an old Quileute word for river.

The guy at the front desk smiled at her as he gave her keys. "What brings you to this neck of the woods?"

Neck of the woods, what a strange phrase. If anything, a broken neck. "Visiting family," she said. It was only partially a lie, she supposed. She looked the guy over, he was completely average looking, maybe still in college, the only remarkable thing about him was his smile. "What's your name?" She asked, feeling herself embolden.

He cocked his head, assessing her, his demeanor changing slightly. "Patrick."

Nadia smiled, a tiny Cheshire grin. "Well, Patrick… Maybe you can show me which way to my room?"

Patrick's gaze fell, scrolling the top of the check in desk. Nadia imagined that he was looking for a reason, an excuse. When he looked back up at her, she knew he hadn't found any.

She followed him outside. The motel was all one floor, with the rooms stretched out side by side in a long rectangle. Her key read Room 12. When Patrick reached his hand out for it, she let him take it.

"Do you have any luggage?" He asked, noticing that her hands were empty.

"I can get them later," she assured him.

He slid the key into the bolt and the lock turned. After he opened the door, he let her go in first. Nadia looked around, unsurprised, she had seen it all before. "Nice," she told him.

Patrick had closed the door, and he was pressed up against it with his hands in his pockets.

To Nadia, he looked like a scared little boy. "Are you a virgin?"

He scoffed, "No," he said. She could hear a wound in his voice, though.

She exhaled, kicking off her shoes. The process of undressing for her was quick and she started by unbuttoning her jeans.

"Are you sure about this?" Patrick asked. If he could have retreated farther into the painted wood of the door he would have. His hands were out of his pockets now and he had them up, palms raised.

"Are you not?" She asked. "You followed me in here, Patrick." Her jeans were puddled on the ground where she had stepped out of them. With a quick motion she had her t shirt up over her head and her breasts and necks were exposed to him. Slowly, she watched his eyes glaze over. "Why don't you come over here," she said, her tone a bit sarcastic. "And you can touch me, and we'll get started."

Afterward, as Nadia stood in the bathroom, having already ushered Patrick back out to the check in desk, she realized that he had, in fact, been a virgin. The first time had lasted less than two minutes. When he had finally gotten onto the bed with his pants off his penis had already been twitching and purple, even though she had barely touched him. She had gotten on top of him, bouncing with him inside of her for no more than a handful of times when he came, with a high-pitched grunt, clutching her hips so hard that she might have bruises there tomorrow.

She had rolled away, annoyed, to pleasure herself, but he had balked. "What are you doing?" He had asked.

"What you can't seem to do," she had retorted testily.

As she masturbated, he got hard again and begrudgingly she rolled back over to sit astride him. "Don't you dare cum until I tell you to," she warned, his dick was probably throbbing inside of her but she didn't care. She moved slowly, methodically, desperate for her own release and relaxation. When she finally came, he was a blubbering mess underneath her, skin goosbumped and lips dry. His chest rising and falling so hard that she could count his ribs on the exhale.

He had run his hands up and down her legs. "You didn't shave?"

"I didn't have to."

He rubbed his palms up and down the soft hair, eyes staring hungrily at the globes of her breasts, still swinging above him. He was still inside her and she was not in the mood to do that again. When she extracted herself from his clutch he whined, like a little boy, she could tell he was getting hard again. "It's been fun," she said, to be polite. "But I have to get to get to work."

"Work?" The word sounded like a joke to him. He gestured to his arousal, back on full display before her.

"Sorry," she said. "No more time." It took another five minutes to get him out of the room so she could be alone.

Now, looking at her reflection in the mirror, she studied herself. In the other room she could hear her phone pinging but she wanted to explore. Somehow the room already felt stale with Patrick's aura, the air smelt grey and the back of her throat tasted like cigarette ash. She pulled on her jeans, hurriedly, and covered her upper body with a loose tank top, leaving the room braless, with her hair in a wild mess down her back.

Nadia made a point not to look toward the check in office at the front of the motel.

Driving through Shuwah took all of about ten minutes. One main street with a pharmacy, with decoratively run-down ramblers and a tiny K through Twelve grade school. She went up the highway, taking the first turn off into Forks. She had never been here, but her grandmother had spoken of the place often in terms of being cursed with dark magic and acting as a beacon to supernatural beings. They were drawn by the reclusiveness of it; a natural place for them to roam freely amongst the people that they would one day happily devoir.

In the two days that had passed since her phone call with Billy she had received an email from him, detailing where the Cullen house was—an inhabitance that Nadia had only ever seen in photographs from the network. She drove past the turn that led up to the compound but she kept going straight, unwilling to take that step yet. If the vampire called Alec truly had defected the Cullen's would be the last place that he would seek refuge. There had to be another reason why the Volturi was in town.

She passed The Evergreen, the local dive bar, where, across the street the body shop was, where, according to Billy's email, Jacob also worked. She eyed the parking lot, with it's loose gravel parking lot. The sign above the door read Foreign Auto Body Repair. She didn't stop to spend more time on it, soon enough she would come face to face with Jacob Black, no need to rush.

Continuing to drive through the tiny town, she passed another localized grocery store, kitty-cornered by a sporting good story called Newton's. Farther up the road, the bustle of the small-town main street turned into densely populated winding roads with tree's bordering each side. Beyond them tiny neighborhood streets curled around the turnoffs, she took a turn, randomly, perusing the small-town appeal of this place. She passed a pair of native looking girls, one looking heavily pregnant, taking a stroll down one of the streets. Nadia raised an eyebrow, wondering if they had settled on this claustrophobic street with a couple of white guys, and were already popping out babies.

She continued to drive until she hit the dead end of the street a few miles farther inland. Turning the wheel of the jeep she made a U-turn, and slowly made her way back up. Passing a white house, she noticed a native boy sprinting into the tree line with a girl following behind him. She saw short hair and basketball shorts, and as she drove passed the girl waved. A harmless gesture, but somehow, to Nadia, it said. Don't look at me. Don't pay any attention to this.

Nadia didn't wave back, but she did keep her eye on the rearview mirror longer than she typically would, trying to catch sight of the pair again.

Outside of Forks she made it to the cliffs above La Push beach, where she parked the jeep at the lookout station and wandered, by foot, to the edge. It had been raining off and on for hours, and her feet, now bare, sank into the mud with each step. The wind off the coast was bracing, but to Nadia to felt amazing. She examined the edge of the cliff, toes poking over. The drop must have been a few hundred feet, maybe even more, with the sharp angles of the cliff rock jutting up like claws.

Nadia smirked, running it palms up her bare arms, feeling the delicate hair on her skin feel electrified when she made up her mind what she was about to do. She turned back, took a few steps away from the edge, and then turned, collapsing the distance at a run until she weightless, defying gravity. She reached her arms out, pointing her toes, feeling that single second of panic before her arms shifted into wings, the hair on her body blooming out across her skin until everything that she was, was feathers and change and the wind around her.

For the first time in days, her mind was blank.