I've not actually read The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner, so if you have and this doesn't match up with how the vampires slipped up, I'm sorry!

I'm planning a double posting this weekend, so if all goes well, tomorrow's the big day!

Chapter 17

By Sunday evening, the weather had turned once again; Seattle had woken warm that morning; by lunchtime, the city was being lashed with rain; and the sun had finally set over cool, damp streets.

Carys was woken by the hotel reception calling up to her room at six o'clock that evening. By the time she had showered and eaten the last of the granola bars she bought the day before, pink and blue twilight had given way to the dark, intermittently interrupted by the soft yellow wash of street lights.

Her backpack jogged against her spine as she left the hotel, choosing to walk rather than retrieve her car from the dedicated parking garage. Carys stopped to adjust the straps so that it sat more comfortably.

One of Carlisle's jumpers hung low over her thighs, the thick black material, worn over the top of skinny jeans and a camisole, kept her warm if she crossed her arms against the wind. Ankle boots kept her feet dry when she dodged shallow puddles.

One earphone tucked into her collar, the other playing her playlist over and over into her ear, Carys removed her camera from the backpack once she arrived at her destination, and attached the long-range night lens. A long strap, looped over the back of her neck, took the majority of its weight as she let it rest against her ribs, snapping pictures as inconspicuously as she could.

Carys had been mistaken for a tourist taking needless pictures during the day, but needed to be more careful once the sun set.

She should have been more scared, she supposed, but she could not seem to find it within herself as she searched, for the second time, long into the night.

Every so often she narrowed her eyes, pursed her lips, and awkwardly pointed it towards a rooftop, just in case. It felt oddly embarrassing to do so, and she found herself checking the emptying streets afterwards, in case anyone had seen her strange decision.

Hunger, fatigue and cold finally seeped through around one in the morning and she was attracted by the bright interior and neon signs to a diner which could take care of her needs. She seated herself by the window and searched the pictures she had taken whilst she absentmindedly grazed on a plate of fries.

Carys zoomed-in every so often, abandoning her food for minutes at a time, but ultimately moved on from each picture. She would recheck them when she got back to her room and had loaded them onto her laptop.

It reminded her, she should email Amy and Findlay again.

Carys had packed away the camera, polished off her fries, and was deciding whether or not to give herself one last sweep of the area when her phone rang. Leah was the only person with her number who would call her that late. She answered immediately.

"Hey, what's up?"

"Sam's just left; he was sat with Dad for hours, talking about something. I bet you it was Seth."

Leah was agitated, upset; she sounded both angry and close to tears.

Carys could imagine Leah was pacing her room, hissing quickly into the phone as she did so. Eyes widening, she pushed back the curls that had escaped her bun. She started to speak, but Leah was not yet finished.

"Last week he was talking about how Seth's going to be a doctor! Now they're eyeing him up for the gang, and Dad's still acting like Sam's god's gift or something," Leah moaned. "You know what happens when they join that gang. They practically drop out of school. No more friends for Seth. No more Doctor Seth Clearwater. No more normal teenage life!"

Having grabbed her backpack from the seat beside her, Carys hurriedly searched for her purse.

"Do you want me to come home?" she asked. "'Cause I can come back if you need someone?"

Tucking a twenty-dollar bill half-under the napkin holder, she caught the eye of the tired waitress, pointed at the table, flashed a smile of thanks, and zipped her bag.

Leah stayed silent for a little while longer.

"No. No. I need to run to calm me down, but I'm not allowed out the house," Leah sighed, then reluctantly admitted, "And no one else picked up."

Leah had lost most of her closest friends over the past year. Starting with Emily, the others had either joined Sam's gang, chosen Emily's side, or grown tired of Leah's attitude and propensity for anger.

Monica often complained about how blind and impatient teenagers could be; Leah was deeply hurt, but fiercely loyal; if the roles were reversed, Leah would be there for any of them in an instant.

And she would stay.

Carys dropped back into her seat, having been halfway to standing. The waitress, watching her reactions with interest, approached, coffee pot in hand.

"Well then - oh, thank you, I'm sorry, I thought I was leaving," she said, directing the last to the waitress who lingered for a moment, filling her cup before moving on. Thankfully, she took note of the money and spared her a tired smile before she did so. "Sorry, Leah?"

"Yeah?"

"You didn't call them just now, did you?"

"I'm not an idiot, Carys."

"Okay, well, I'm sitting in a diner with a fresh cup of coffee and nothing to do but listen. So vent away, lovely."

"You're sure...?"

Carys ignored the question in favour of her own.

"How do you know Sam and your dad were talking about Seth?"

Leah hesitated.

"Well I don't, exactly," she whispered. "But they were out there for ages. After all the foolishness Dad's been up to this weekend, it probably was."

"What foolishness?"

"You don't want to hear all that."

"As I said, I literally have nothing else to do but listen," said Carys, scratching lightly at her forehead.

"Ouch."

"I didn't mean it like that."

Leah sounded as if she were smiling when she said:

"I know. Do you need to talk about why you're in a diner at 2 AM?"

"Midnight snack called my name. Why aren't you allowed out?"

Leah hiccuped.

"Besides the time, and how I'm still in school?"

Carys blushed at the teasing tone.

"Yeah, besides that," she said.

"Mom wants to keep Seth and me 'safe', what with the huge wolves, and-"

"Hold up. Hold up. Hold up. We have wolves? I thought it was a mutant bear problem!?" Carys shrilly asked, lowering her voice when the dark-haired waitress, back behind the long counter, looked up in alarm.

Leah chuckled again, sounding calmer; more amused and less upset.

"I forgot you're basically a hermit at the moment. We've got a fuck-off sized feral wolf running about the forest now. Charlie called Dad super early yesterday, like: 'hey, I know you've got a heart problem now or whatever, and your whole family's worried about you, but d'you wanna go on a hunt with me and the guys?'"

"He didn't!?" Carys breathed, lifting her cup to her lips.

"Yup! So then Mom, obviously, because she's sane, says: 'hold up, have we thought about this?' But they're all like: 'there're giant wolves in the forest, Sue'," said Leah, exaggerating her imitation of her parents' voices, much like her brother was prone to. "So guess who got to sit home fretting about him all day?"

"Men," Carys supplied dryly.

She took one last sip of coffee and replaced the cup to the table.

"Right? They went out first thing like they were Rambo instead of middle-aged dads. As if the wolf's going to hear half of Forks and the Rez coming and be like 'oh shit, lemme just stand right here until you shoot me'."

Carys spluttered, almost choking on a laugh. How much had she missed in the space of a week?

She sobered a moment later when it occurred to her to ask:

"Wait. A giant wolf. In La Push, or Forks?"

"Both. This woman saw it up near the hot springs resort."

"Are we talking wolf wolf, or... Ancient wolf...?" she asked.

In making the obvious connection, Carys had momentarily forgotten that she and Leah did not speak about the Quileute legends. She was not sure how long Quileute wolves lived, or if it passed down through their children. Carlisle had seemed sure there weren't any left, and she hadn't wanted the details.

"Seth wasn't supposed to tell you about that...," Leah worried aloud.

Carys held her breath, unsure of how much she could admit to knowing, or, really, how much she did know in the grand scheme of things.

"He didn't," she explained. "And I don't know much at all, but I-uh... I wondered why everyone hated me for dating Carlisle..."

"So you know about the whole... Carlisle being a...," Leah trailed off, skirting the subject as much as Carys.

"And bits about the whole, your ancestors..., turning into..."

"Yeah...?" Leah said.

"That's pretty much it..."

Apart from the treaty.

Carys checked they were still connected when Leah said nothing.

"I don't need to know more, I promise," Carys vowed.

"Thanks... You know I really can't talk about it, but..., legend goes the wolves were our protectors," she said slowly, reassuringly adamant. "They wouldn't go 'round killing people if they were real, and there's not been so much as a rumour of them in a century. Besides, there's only one sighting."

"Wait... Someone died?"

Carys had kept her voice low this time, moving on from the legends as promised.

Leah's parents were both Elders, her father was on the Council, and she and Seth had grown up having legends drummed into them from an early age, ready for when they might become protectors of the Reservation's oral history themselves.

That, coupled with the knowledge Leah had imparted, that the Pack Carlisle had met only went after vampires, and the fact a human had been killed, was enough.

It would have to be.

"This guy disappeared off the side of the road, so his wife went searching for him and saw a feral wolf tearing off. That's what Dad decided to go risk his life on."

Leah paused for a half a minute or so as Carys mulled over the news.

"But yeah...," she eventually said.

"Go on," Carys told her, giving her the permission she sought to continue her story.

"Last week at school Sam's little gang was eyeing Seth up. I told Jared to back up off him, so they did, but then, Sam and my Dad are holding little backyard conferences in the middle of the night..."

"Fishy..."

"There's fishy, and there's Dad losing it-hold on, I think I heard..."

Silence fell for a few moments, then the high creak of a door on the other end of the phone, and finally a deep voice, thick with sleep, away from the receiver, asked loudly enough for Carys to hear:

"(Leah?)"

"(Did I wake you?)"

Leah must have moved closer because Seth's voice was louder but in no way alarmed or less sleepy when he asked:

"(What're you doing?)"

"(Checking on you. I thought I heard a thump or something.)," Leah said, her tone soothing.

"(I'm okay.)"

"(Cool, then back to sleep, little one.)"

"(Are you going to murder me?)"

"(Not 'til you're old and rich, and I can forge your will.)"

A deep rumbling chuckle preceded a rustling sound, and then the creak of the door being closed.

"Hey, sorry about that," Leah whispered.

"Safe and sound?"

"Yeah." Leah sighed heavily, and when she next spoke, her voice was louder as if she had returned to her room. "Am I blowing this all out of proportion because it's Sam, and Dad's running around the forest like an idiot?"

"I don't know... I mean..., maybe they were talking about the wolf hunt, though? Did Sam go with them?"

"No... But Mom's getting worried about it all too. They were arguing earlier about Seth being ready, or too young for something, and he waited until she went to bed before-oh for god's sake. Speak of the devil, I've gotta go. I think Mom's up now. Text you in the morning?"

"Sure."

"And... Thanks, Carys."

"For what?"

"You picked up."

The line went dead.

Carys stared down at the linoleum table as she finished her coffee, checked the text Leah sent her minutes later, which said that Sue was making them both cocoa, then stood up, left the diner, and headed back to the hotel.

Feral wolves in Forks, feral vampires in Seattle... What was happening to the world?


Watching the news on Wednesday afternoon, Carys thought she found what she was looking for, and wished she hadn't.

She had taken her car with her on Monday night and left it parked just down the road from a cinema.

Her nightly search had brought up little more than a couple of pictures of what might or might not have been a couple lurking at the end of the road, more than a block behind her, and she was returning to her car as the last showing let out.

A large group of college students pushed through the doors. Joking about the film and each other, their raucous cries had been loud enough to fill the street, high over the otherwise quiet chatter and called farewells of the dispersing crowd.

Carys had looked after them as she unlocked her car, and thrust her key into the ignition.

Five of the students, the loudest ones who had called the most attention to themselves, stared at her now from the television screen, smiling in a far more sedate manner.

The news anchors were debating whether or not they were the latest victims of the suspected serial killer blighting the city.

Carys looked down at her laptop screen which displayed the enlarged photo of the couple she had seen on Monday night. The group of students had last been seen turning onto the same road they were lurking at the end of. Even with the street light, the pair were incredibly pale.

Carys frowned and tuned back in to the broadcast.

"Mellie, come on now. Isn't it just a little too early to be speculating about the Seattle Ripper?" one asked. "These are college students we're talking about; it's spring break! They're probably halfway to California by now! I know I would be!"

"Haha, yes, I think we all know that, Dan," the other chided.

"Think about this for a moment. If it is the Ripper, he's what? Taking five people at once now? Are we really making this-and this is a serial killer we don't know exists in the first place, we should remember that-are we really supposed to believe he's the bogeyman as well?"

Carys lowered the volume.

Dressed in a fluffy hotel robe, she slid from the bed, meandered her way to the chair beside the desk, sat, and removed the towel from her wet hair.

"If this is you, you're drawing too much attention to yourselves... Why would you risk that...?" Carys muttered to herself, staring off into space as she applied more conditioner. "Unless you don't know about the laws...? But that makes no sense...

"One of you must have the control to change the others, so you must be old enough to know about them..."

She punctuated each long stroke of the brush through her hair with another whispered question or thought.

Much, much later, when the sun had descended once again and she was at risk of wearing a hole in the carpet with her pacing, she came to a sudden halt in the middle of the room.

"Oh my god. What if they don't know?" she wondered aloud. "What if they were changed, and abandoned, and Riley or this woman have super control powers or something?"

It was rare, but not unheard of, for a vampire to leave a potential newborn behind. It had happened to Carlisle, his best friend Garrett, and Alice had thought it had happened to her.

Carys dropped to her haunches and gripped her now-dry hair together at her nape.

"How many of you are there, and why don't you know the rules?"

I kind of wished Carys would have seen Bree Tanner and saved her (she was changed on Saturday 11th), but she's only human...

Thanks to: Anita Simons, chellekathrynnn, Riariabookworm (Thank you! I was thinking about taking it out, but I couldn't once I wrote it haha! I'm excited too!), Ella, JosieNightOwl, Love. Fiction. 2020, TDI- Ryro- Eclares, Ghostwriter71, mariananininha, souverian, and inkyvlaudy for your reviews!

Ella (I like to think Alice and the others (apart from Rosalie, Esme, and Carlisle) made the mistake of thinking of Carys as Carlisle's mate in this instance. They live like a family, but as Carmen said, Carlisle is the head of the second-largest coven in the world, and the amount of respect and power coven leaders' mates hold is immeasurable to vampires - Aro and Caius lock their wives away, for example. Alice needs to remember she's not a mum-like figure or a coven-head she can go to about her concerns about when Carlisle is gone, and dismiss or ignore any arguments they might have had. That's an amazing take on Grey's and Mer by the way! I'm totally going to watch it like that from now on!)