6/6/12
Beta'd by Squeakyzorro and Kate
Pre-read by Kitty
Special thanks to Miaokuancha for her medical knowledge and availability for consultation.
*Because I cannot reveal certain things in review responses in order to keep the story's plot under wraps, and because this is a wip and certain things are subject to change, readers should only put 70% stock in any review response I give them. Meaning, that what I reveal is in the broadest sense the truth, but not in its entirety. Just to warn you all...
Okay. It's been a while, my apologies. RL's a bitch, and it's just about to get bitchier. See endnote for RL news. Anyway this is my longest chapter yet: 29 pages, in case you're all wondering. Also, teaser one didn't make the cut. :/ It was for the best, but one of you guessed correctly on the forums who the mystery speaker was in teaser 2 :)
Kudos.
RECAP:
*last chapter had a conversation between Carlisle and Edward, where Carlisle was able to shake Edward out of his emoness and take charge. Tony meanwhile has falen back into old habits and attacked a human in the middle of committing a crime. He heads into the forest for a bit to get some blood and brood. Meanwhile, the wolves are demanding a meeting with the vampires...
I'll be waiting in the wings for your response, trash can lid/shield in hand...
*6/12/12 I've been told that this chapter is somewhat hard to follow. While I admit, I had a difficult time, just keep in mind that this story is in present tense, and that there are certain things the characters know that have't been spelt out for the reader yet. I do however apologize if the narrative seems a bit sloppy. Writers block is a real bitch...
B
The hole stares back at me.
It's circular, but rugged and misshapen at the edges. Several long cracks creep over the expanse of the wood, like the spindly, uneven legs of an abstract spider.
The hallway outside is quiet and empty. I know it without having to look through the hole. For once, despite the events of the day, luck seemed to be on our side. The old woman across from us has had her television turned all the way up since I arrived home, so there is little chance that she had heard or seen anything. The occupants on our side seem to be working late again, while the other two across from us, farther down, I know are on vacation. Very lucky indeed.
It was easy enough re-setting the door on its frame and cleaning up the debris. Nothing could be done about the hinges. The force of impact ripped them clean off the doorpost, but it's no matter. Flash a bit of money, apologize with the sweetest smile you can, and the landlord won't even blink. A broken door is hardly something to worry about.
Broken doors can be replaced. Sons can't.
I shut my eyes, turning myself away from the door. I lean over the kitchen table, rubbing my face and clutching my mouth as I try to will that last thought away.
No. Nothing is wrong. He's all right. He'll come home, he'll go to his room, and we won't talk for days, maybe months, but he'll be home. He'll be safe. It's ridiculous to be thinking like this now, like he's about to—
"Bella?"
I gasp, a jolt of lightning running through my body, starting in my heart and ending at my fingertips and toes. I turn in my seat to face the door, still half expecting to see the pale beige wall of the outside hallway through the hole. Intense golden eyes meet me instead.
Carefully his hand pushes the wood away, just enough so he could squeeze through. Emotions play on his face, too fast for me to pinpoint. He doesn't move once he's inside. His eyes go to the hole in the door, then to the window, where the broken pieces of glass still remain. His head tilts towards the hallway, and that's when I know I don't need to tell him. If the door and window weren't indicative enough, the absence of Tony's mind is. Something new consumes Edward. It locks his jaw and forces him to turn around to re-secure the door behind him.
"What are you doing here?" I ask, just as he slots the wood back into the frame.
"There's a situation." His hand pauses over the edges of the hole. He clenches his fist, comparing the shape of it to the shape of the damage.
"What do you mean?"
He continues with trying to block the doorway, and I feel that familiar sense of trepidation, that ominous sensation of my lungs and heart plummeting into my stomach and then being thrown back up into my throat. I grab the edge of the table for support. Finally, he turns around to face me.
"The pack is demanding a meeting. They feel…threatened by your sudden appearance."
Instead of uncoiling, the knots in the pit of my stomach twist harder. I look at him in confusion, unsure of what to say, what to make of this.
"I don't understand. I never even met any of them."
"I know. But Tony has. "
My eyes widen, recognition sparking in my brain. Edward's explanation from this afternoon of their present status replays in my mind. I look to him for confirmation and he gives it. My anger is triggered, and my anxiety is erased. I glare at him in outrage.
"Brent was the one Tony punched. Not Nathan." My grip imprints my fingertips into the table's wood. "Tony never even mentioned—"
"I know, but they don't care. The fact is, Nathan sounded the alarm."
He closes the space between us. Like before, his scent overwhelms my senses, and I have to swallow the venom that pools in my mouth. I look down at his shoes. Black leather. Undoubtedly a brand of high class and price. I let my mind wander, let myself shoot into a ridiculous tangent of wondering exactly how much Alice must have spent to complete her idea of the perfect ensemble for her brother. Was it business as usual? Or another feeble attempt at burying the sense of guilt she had supposedly harbored in abandoning her "best friend," as Edward had implied, when describing the poor state his family had been in since their departure?
"Do you know where he went?" he asks me softly, shaking me out of my errant thoughts. I can't bring myself to look at him. His report, this new information is still processing through my brain, generating conclusion after conclusion, until all I can feel is terror. Bit's of the information he provided earlier link together with the pack's present actions—if they're calling a meeting, then that means that all members are here, patrolling the area. It means they're mobilizing and preparing for a fight.
It means Prince Rupert and the surrounding area has just become a war zone and Tony is in the thick of it.
I've long stopped breathing. It takes all of my restraint to not let out the anguish building in my chest and to pulverize the already-destroyed door—to plunge into the night, find him, and drag him back home. He's out there somewhere with no idea of the danger. He doesn't know. Everything in me screams to tear this city apart and find him.
But I can't. And that's the real kicker. The real punch line. How many times has Tony told me how much waiting and hiding infuriates him? Watching the minutes tick by while knowing that despite all his super strength and senses, he can't do anything? And in the one instance I'm forced to finally see his point of view, he's the reason for it. The reason I'm fidgeting and aching to tear apart the city and take action in the first place.
I can't leave. Reni's steady breathing and heart rate is all the reminder I need.
My mind switches to autopilot. I can't just stand here idly. Not with Edward and his endless remorse and sorrow and scent surrounding me. And Tony's. It still lingers here, where we shouted and tried to sway the other in a mix of anger and desperation. I turn away from Edward, walking into the kitchen. I find the dustpan and broom, and before I know it, I'm on my knees under the window, sweeping the glass fragments into the plastic pan. I focus on each individual scratch that each piece of glass makes in the wood as my mind drifts back to more than a year ago.
The airport terminal bustles with movement. Our seats face the windows, and beyond that, the drop-off area. Taxicabs and beaten-up rust wagons that would have put my red Chevy to shame deposit its occupants. A revolving door resides farther down to the right. A never-ending stampede of travelers pass us, self-absorbed and blissfully unaware: businessmen and women, tourists, well-wishers seeing loved ones off, loved ones receiving fidgeting relatives already annoyed with the humid climate. They don't matter. All that matters is the adolescent boy sitting to my left, staring stoically at the heavily waxed floor.
I continue to stroke Reni's curls. Her eyes remain locked on the ceiling above us as she connects the tips of her fingers in rhythm with the song she hums under her breath. The humming is a good sign, but that parasitic fear keeps eating away at me, despite the reiterations of countless child psychology books passing through my mind. It's been a week and she has yet to say a word. Mental or verbal. Without shifting her too much I cradle her closer to me, until the right side of her face is against my stomach. Her gaze breaks away from the ceiling briefly to meet mine, puzzlement now her dominating expression. I smile down at her. She smiles back. The relief comes.
But it doesn't last.
All it takes for it to be washed away is the turning of my head to the sight beside me: the way he crosses his arms over his chest—the familiar mark of someone trying to hold it together—the faraway, desolate look in his eyes, but most of all… My eyes catch the small gap between our bodies on the seat, the handful of inches that separates us. His distance. His aversion to…contact—any form, be it physical or emotional. He won't talk to me. He won't let me in. It's been like this for days. First Reni, now Tony, and I don't know what to do, or even if I can do anything.
It feels like I can't, like it's too late. Like we've reached some sort of proverbial crossroad, and there's no going back. Permanency and vampirism go hand in hand. From our mindsets to our appearances, we don't change. We don't revert back to who we were or evolve into something more…usually.
Love. Hate. Grief. They are still universally life-altering, even to us. But it can't be evoked when we're on our own. Strong emotion comes with interaction. It needs people to spark them. It's only logical—fire needs oxygen, plants need water, and people need people. Even eternal, we're social creatures, governed by the rules of social psychology. So shouldn't that be cause for relief? It means that there is still hope for us all. That despite our natures, there is potential for change. And Tony and Reni aren't even full vampires. Their emotional capacities aren't and can never be set in stone. Shouldn't that fact account for something?
"Talk to me." I try once again. His eyes narrow a fraction, still not breaking their staring contest with the floor. The desperation rises in my throat, threatening to escape in a scream of fury and hopelessness. Everything that has happened the last couple of weeks races through my mind over and over again, threatening to rob me of my vision and make my reality a constant replay of blood, screaming matches and destruction.
And he just sits there, staring at the floor, acting as if the world around him doesn't exist.
I've failed him twice now. First in 2009, and again tonight. I recall it all—every fight, every bitter word exchanged between us, and every memory of a door being slammed shut as he walked away to fume. What happened in the elevator sticks out the most. I could have stopped him. I should have found a way to keep him here.
This is my fault.
"No, it isn't."
I'm too strung up to care when I started speaking aloud. Vaguely I'm aware of him pulling me up, the glass collected in the dustpan sliding out and clattering back to the floor. Even on the verge of breaking, I still don't trust myself to meet his gaze. The thread holding together my sanity and keeping my hysteria at bay is stretched at its tightest point. It crushes my chest, draining the air out of my lungs. I feel his hands on my shoulders. He repeats his words, and a wave of guilt crashes over me and nearly sends me over the edge.
"You don't know that," I croak to the second button on his shirt. "You don't know—"
"Yes…" he tilts my chin up so he can look at me straight in the face, his gaze intense, urging me to see… "I do." I still don't believe him. And he sees it. He swallows hard, not allowing me to look away.
"All of this was set in motion from the moment I decided to erase myself from your life, to take away your choice in all of this." I open my mouth to protest, but he stops me with a finger to my lips.
"What could you have done?"
"I don't know… something…anything but let him out of my sight."
Edward shakes his head. "But you did do something. You told him the truth. You told him what he had to hear." Without breaking eye contact, he taps his temple, sadness creeping into his expression. "He rarely strays from his chosen path. That much was clear."
"He's still out there," I mumble.
"And we'll find him," he says resolutely. I feel him take the dustpan and broom out of my hands. He moves at vampire speed, cleaning up the mess in a matter of seconds. He guides me back to the kitchen table, except this time he sits beside me.
"I need to ask you—I know, after everything, it's absurd for me to be asking this of you, especially so soon…"
I look up from my lap, immediately wary. He tentatively poses his question, and my wariness is replaced with confusion.
"W-what?"
"Will you both come with me?"
"Where?"
"My house."
My unease seems to make its way onto my face because he follows up by saying, "They'll leave you alone. You won't have to talk to them if you don't want to."
"And if I want to?"
The question tumbles out of my mouth before I can stop it. He watches me sadly, in understanding. I've spent too long holding everything in. Wondering why…asking myself why…
"They'll answer whatever you want to ask them."
My lips purse in disapproval, still not convinced.
"Why can't we stay here? The pack just wants to talk, right? What does it matter where we stay?"
"I don't trust them."
I don't give him an answer. He sighs, rubbing his jaw almost tiredly as he gets up and walks to the exposed window. He stuffs his hands down his pant pockets as he watches the alley outside.
"…There are already a couple of pack members staking out your building. They intend to enter in the next hour under the guise of making sure the humans aren't in danger."
I know what he's saying…but it doesn't make me any less hesitant. The facts are the facts. The Quileutes are looking for a reason to throw the truce they have with the Cullens out the window and engage in an all-out war. My son is nowhere to be found, and I have only the faintest idea where he might be. If we stay here, Tony will have somebody to return to.
If he returns.
No. I can't think like that. Of course he's going to come back. He had always returned, even after our worst fights.
Almost always, my brain reminds me.
But that time doesn't count. That time he didn't leave because of a fight…and I knew where he was. It's not the same. All of this…it's just too much to take in right now. He needs to come to terms with it all. And he can only do that on his own. In his own way…
But visions of another night months ago springs up in my mind-the cold, hard look in his eyes, the ruined T-shirt that hung off his wiry frame, weighed down by rainwater and blood.
He'll fall back into old habits, if he hasn't already. He may even take it a step further.
But what if he doesn't? What if I'm wrong, and he's headed straight into the forest right after he left the building? It's plausible. It could have happened. I rise from my seat, intending to tell Edward "no." They'll have no reason to hurt him. And he'll come back on his own, I tell myself. I have to wait for him. I start to approach Edward, already reciting in my mind what I want to say…
Until my eyes find the hole in the door again.
It stares back at me, cracks and all. A reminder of my son's inability to cope with what he's just realized, to come to terms with the future that has been re-written for us. An expression of his outrage and contempt. And suddenly, I know that whatever I hope he has or hasn't done is nothing more than my denial trying to worm its way into my psyche once again. Hope is a tricky creature. Two-faced and tantalizing. It can hide and resurface at our most desperate hour, either to be our godsend or a cruel joke from below…
I've already heard my share of jokes. I don't need to hear anymore.
There is no way, after what happened today, that he would be capable of holding onto his reason once he left that elevator. Or at least, the majority of his reason. He would've had enough sense to stay hidden. Be inconspicuous. Keep the secret. I go through the two options in my head again. If we stay, he will have us to return to. It will be a message to him that there is something he can count on in his already unstable world—that we will be here in the same place he left us in order to chase away the demons that have begun to wage war inside of him. Left us to douse the burn in his throat and psyche with animal blood and brutality; in the forest, and in the city—where a victim's scream can go unheard.
In the city…
Where outraged, degraded shape shifters run free and seek vengeance for the brothers they have already lost, who will surely lock onto a peculiar halfling fresh from his hunt, follow him home, and try to achieve the retribution they have been denied for so long that it will have wiped all reason from their minds, just as my own son's fire at my choice erased his. Regardless of our setting. Regardless of the oblivious humans surrounding us.
If we stay here, we'll run the risk of exposure.
If we leave, Tony won't linger when he returns. He'll track us to wherever Edward's home is, regardless of how he feels towards him. Towards all of them. The wolves will not be able to attack, not with so many vampires in one place. We'll be on the Cullens' turf, where no one will need to worry about revealing themselves to any bystanders. We can have some sort of control over the situation.
He'll be safe. And so will we.
"How long?" I ask faintly, my mind already made up.
"A night. Maybe two."
I nod once then walk out of the living room and into the hallway, stopping at the closet. I open the door, grabbing the lone black duffle bag tucked into the corner of the top shelf. I check to see if the contents are still in there: a medium-sized funnel, a square, plastic jug that can hold up to a gallon of liquid, a black thermos, and of course the hunting knife. Seeing everything is still in adequate condition, I zip up the bag and head into Tony's room.
"Carlisle wants to do a checkup on Reni."
I look at him in surprise. He continues, "The seizures you described are troubling, but he won't do anything without your permission."
"And you? What do you make of this?"
"I agree with him."
I say nothing as the doors ping open, and we step out into the lobby, ignoring the puzzled stare the doorman gives us as we exit the building. Reni cuddles closer as she feels the cool wind wash over us, and for a moment I think that she's going to wake up. A new, terrifying thought takes me as I consider how likely that is to happen right now. She's been asleep for a couple of hours. She should be waking up by now.
How am I supposed to explain this to her?
She was frightened enough during the scene in the hallway, hiding behind her mess of hair, shrinking into herself, pretending to be invisible. Has Tony already told her? And if he has, how much? Has she put it together herself? She saw him with her own eyes…but the way I made it sound to her over the years, the vague comments, the reassurances, all because of my weakness…
I should have told them from the beginning.
For the moment, my fear is unneeded. She's still sound asleep as I slide us into the passenger seat of Edward's car, parked across the street. I don't even notice the model as he places the bag in the back seat and quietly shuts the door. We maintain our silence as he starts up the engine and drives us out of the city.
Edward's request resurfaces. A checkup. For Reni. Maybe I can finally get some answers. Nahuel said hybrids were incapable of getting sick, that natural diseases would never affect them because of their immune systems and healing capabilities…
But Nahuel hasn't seen it all.
Reni's case was already something out of our combined ballpark's, and what happened with Tony… I can still smell the splintered, demolished trees, the smoke, the fresh blood and opened flesh.
I stop myself before the images can return. I can't think of that. It's all there, from the shape of the gash to the way he convulsed as I cradled him in my arms and watched him slip away…But I don't need to think about it. I don't have to picture it. I refuse.
I give him an answer just as his house comes into view.
"Tony, too."
R
My eyes open. It's dark, but I can still see the shifty wall of blanket in front of me. It's so warm inside, so soft…and clean-smelling. That's funny. Laundry day isn't until Wednesday. I push the blankets away. They're heavy and soft, but I'm not sleepy anymore, and I really need to go potty.
That's when I notice something's off.
I reach at the sides of the bed, trying to find a lamp. There isn't one on the right, but there is on the left. I have to rub my eyes a bit more after I turn it on. The carpets are thick and match the blankets. There's a huge, light brown chest of drawers right in front of the bed. Its corners are curved and fancy-looking, like the ones in the shop me and Momma passed a long time ago in Cherryville.
Where am I? This isn't my room.
On the chest of drawers left is a door that's not closed all the way. A bit of light peeks from the cracks. I try to listen as hard as I can, but I can't hear anything clearly. There's a painting on my left of a house beside a pond. It's pretty, but not like Tony's pictures. I still think his are better.
Speaking of Tony…
He puts me on the couch. The leather is cold; it's all I can feel. I can't really hear him. Well, no, that's not true. I can hear him, it's just that I can't understand what he's saying, like he's talking in a different language. But he's scared. I can tell he's scared.
I don't want him to be scared.
Sometimes I can see his face. Not always. It flickers in and out, mixing with Otto's face and making me dizzy. They really do look different. Tony's thinner and has white skin. Otto is fatter and shorter with dark skin. Darker than Miri or Nahuel or Huilen's.
And then it stops. There's darkness—no more faces. I'm so tired; all I want to do is sleep, but at the same time, I feel so sick. My tummy feels icky, and my throat is dry. So thirsty. I swallow, but there's nothing to swallow. I think I tell Tony because the next thing I know, I'm in his arms again, and it's not so dark anymore. My eyes are still shut, but I can tell it's bright wherever we are. Still, I don't fight it. I let my head rest on his shoulder. I know it's his shoulder 'cause of his scent and his school shirt; it's smooth against my cheek. He opens something that makes me cold—a door? Maybe the fridge—and takes something out. More noises, buzzing, and then a ding.
We're sitting now, me on his lap, one of his arms holding me, letting me lie against him, while the other holds something hard to my mouth. I'm still dizzy, and my eyes are still closed. Whatever's he's holding to my mouth is warm and making my nose wet.
I finally let in whatever it is he's trying to get past my lips. Warm, soft, creamy liquid starts to run down my throat. Milk. Warm milk, I realize. It's so good, and it makes my tummy feel better. Even the dizziness is starting to go away. Not the sleepiness, though. That just seems to get stronger.
I finish, licking my lips and rubbing my eyes with my fists. It really is too bright in here. I turn around, blinking a lot, to look up at him. Tony's face. Just his face. I sigh, relieved. I curl up closer to him. He hugs me back. We stay there for a long time until the lights go out. That's when he carries me to my room. He helps me dress because my hands are still shaky, and I'm already starting to fall back to sleep. But I don't want him to leave yet. I don't want to be alone.
I'm already in bed, under the covers. He's sitting on the floor again, hugging his knees. Maybe I told him not to leave yet? I don't know, the sleepiness is starting to take over. Tony says something. I almost miss it as I drift away.
"I'm sorry."
Just remembering it all, the school, how angry he was, makes the room not cozy anymore. I get out of bed, shivering from the cold, my socked toes curling into the carpet. I walk around, passing the chest of drawers. The first door is just an empty closet, but the second one is a bathroom. I have to go on my tip-toes just to the turn on the light. Everything is shiny and clean-looking and smells like vanilla. I don't want to have an accident again, so I close the door and go potty.
Once I'm done, I head for the third door, the one not closed all the way. Bradley's on the bit of carpet nearest the nightstand with the lamp, so I pick him up as I leave. He must be cold…I hug him to me as I open the door, twisting his red-orange mane. Tony has to be around here. He'll tell me what's happened. Momma too, but before I can walk any further, I fall to the ground, my other hand grabbing at the carpet, eyes locked at the closed doors.
So many feelings!
It's not like the bad places that Tony and Momma won't let me go into. I'm not scared at all, but it's just so much! And the…flickers. Yes, that's what they are, because they're not really ghosts, but not actually real. Well, the ones in the hallway aren't real. They move like when Tony presses the fast forward button on the remote, and they flicker like those old black-and-white movies Tony showed me on YouTube. The ones where the camera was shaky and there was no sound.
I've seen lot's of human flickers. Most of them are boring, so I end up ignoring them. It's only when I really concentrate that I can see them, but I don't really do that anymore 'cause Momma said I might see something I'm not supposed to see. Momma and Tony don't blame me when it comes to the bad visions that make me fall asleep or feel scared, though. I've never seen a bad one. Not completely. Momma and Tony always took them from me before I could, like with Otto.
I wish they wouldn't.
They always get quiet for a long time whenever they do it. Especially Tony. Angry too, but he won't admit it.
I try to stare harder at the flickers. I recognize the scary blond lady. She always walks into a room farther across from me with the big man. He makes her smile a lot, and she's a lot prettier when she smiles. I try to reach out and feel the feelings from their room, but then stop—I'm getting that weird, fluttery feeling again. It's kind of like when Tony was watching Animal Planet on the computer. That same fluttery feeling was in the computer spot when I checked it after he left.
There are two other couples' too. The blond man and the lady with honey hair, and the tiny lady and the man with the scars. I can tell that their rooms aren't on this floor. They never stick around for very long in the rooms they go into. It's only the blond lady and the big man that hang around here a lot.
I walk farther down the hall, the flickers passing through me like ghosts. They don't scare me. They're not really ghosts. You have to be dead to be a ghost…
Wait a minute. I stop walking and look at the flickers again.
If they're all vampires, then that means they are dead. So wouldn't that mean...I look at the flickers again, and I shiver, feeling more scared by the second. Does this mean I'm actually seeing their ghosts, too?
I have to find Tony.
I start running down the hallway, passing more pretty pictures. The bars of the stair railing is just ahead, and I can hear Momma's voice! She's too far away for me to hear her words, but once I get to the stairs, I should. She'll tell me what's going on. And where Tony is. Maybe she'll even tell me who that bronze-haired man is. What did Tony call him?
Edward.
The answer pops into my head right as I make it to the top of the stairs. I start to take a step down when I hear their words clearly, for the first time. Another lady is talking now.
"Is there no hope?"
I pause, sitting down so I can listen.
"I don't know," Momma says. Instantly I know something is wrong. She's talking in her sad voice again. She hasn't done that in a while. "It's…complicated. I don't even know if that's an option for me at his point."
"He loves you," someone else says.
"I know."
"And I know you still love him."
It takes a long time for Momma to answer. For some reason, it makes my skin feel crawly.
"That's the problem."
I'm even more confused. Are they talking about Tony? He's the only "he" that Momma loves in her life. Why would that be a problem? I don't feel like talking to her anymore. At least not right now. I get up from the step I'm sitting on and walk back up the stairs.
Tony has to be around here somewhere.
I finally take a good look around. This house is really big. I'm at the top of the stairs. The entire downstairs is open to me, like one giant pool and I'm at the diving board. I spy the comfy-looking couches and chairs, a fireplace, computers along one wall… The space is so open. And there are so many pretty things filling it.
The level where I'm at is wide open, too. The railing goes all around, making it so someone can look down into the downstairs, almost like on giant balcony from a princesses castle. There are two other hallways besides the one I just came from: one on the left and one on the right. I start to walk towards the one on the left; it looks like a good place to start…
More pictures. This time of the vampires in funny clothing. I recognize the blond man in one of them. His mate, I think—the one with the honey hair—is curled by his side, holding onto his arm. She looks much much happier than how her flickers look today. Further down are more pictures, this time with Edward. He's wearing the same kind of suit as the blond man. It's when I get closer to the corner that another surge of feeling hits me. Hard. It's even stronger than what I felt in the first hallway. And completely different.
Sadness. Loneliness.
More things I don't know the name of, but it's not good. It's weird, but it's kind of like how Tony's room always used to feel. Not nearly as sad, but…like the feeling here, there was this…this feeling of…
Oh, I don't know! I feel my face become pouty. I hate it when I don't know the right word! Tony and Momma know lots more words, and Miri would always play that strange word game with Tony whenever they were together. I let out another huff, thinking hard, searching, searching…
It's…tangled. No,that's not quite right. There's probably a better word for it, but until I know it that will have to do. Tangled, like a ball of string. I keep walking towards it, coming closer to the corner. If it feels like Tony's old room, then maybe that means he's there. When I finally turn, I'm expecting to see more doors, maybe more pictures.
I see one door and one flicker instead: Edward's.
I can tell it's a flicker and not the real Edward. Even though he is walking away from me and towards the door at the end of this hallway, he still looks see-through. And whenever I psst to him, he doesn't turn at all. Just like a ghost, he disappears through the door.
Sometimes the tiny lady's flicker appears, trying to get flicker Edward to come out of his room, but he never does, and she always leaves, sometimes angry, sometimes disappointed. More time passes, so I sit down on the carpet criss-cross applesauce to watch what I can.
Even though Tiny Lady can never get him to come out, he always does on his own, when no one is trying. I almost wish he didn't and just stayed in his room. Tony used a word once to describe someone who was worse than sad. He said it was for people who didn't know how to be happy anymore because they were sad for too long: depressed.
Edward looked depressed.
The few times he left his room, his eyes were black and glassy. His clothes were wrinkled, and they never changed; I even started to see the dirt building in the edges of his shirt and bottoms of his jeans. When I can't take it anymore, I get up and walk up to his door. I press my ear to the wood.
Nothing.
No heartbeat, no footsteps. I turn the knob and push the door open. Along with a closet door, there's a black leather couch against the wall on my left. I touch it with my fingertips: cold. The back wall is made of glass, but it's half-blocked by a stiff, navy-blue curtain. The right wall is completely taken up by a black, wooden bookcase, filled all the way up with books, CD's, big, square flat things, and even a shiny new iPod stereo in the middle.
Finally, on the same wall where the door is sits a simple wooden table that he must use as a desk. I step into the middle of the room, turning around. Everything is neat: no clothes on the floor, no trash , not like Tony's room, but there's so much dust, it makes me want to sneeze. It coats the table, the bookshelf, the curtains, it's even on the couch, where his flicker is, lying down, eyes staring up at the ceiling. It's…creepy. Not right. I back away from him, even though a part of me reminds myself that he's not real, but just the way he's so still with his eyes open…It makes my insides cold.
I don't stay in there any longer once I've seen the whole room. Tony's not in there, so there's no point. Actually, once I'm not scared anymore, I'm kind of annoyed. I don't want to go all the way to the other hallway and try to find him. Maybe I should just go downstairs to Momma. I turn the corner. Or try calling him. That could work. He would hear me…
But even though I think it, I know I won't do it. This house is strange. I don't want to make noise; the other vampires might hear me and come instead.
"It kind of makes sense, if you think about it."
I stop in my tracks, my heart jumping in my chest. I watch the mouth of the hallway, and I can see shadows. They're getting bigger, which means….
I whirl around in a panic, trying to find a place to hide. There's no time to pick a safe place, so I just burst right into the nearest door on my right. I close it just as I hear the man who was talking, and I think another one, coming closer.
This room is better, much better than Edward's. It's bigger and brighter and cleaner, with colorful carpet on the floor and lots of squishy-looking armchairs. But that's not all. I know Momma would love it in here. The walls are completely covered with bookshelves. There's even a ladder for the higher books. Also, in front of me, towards the back of the room, is a big, fancy, wooden desk with a shiny new laptop on top.
Remembering that big desks like that always have space inside it for the chair, I run towards it, crawling inside. It's just my size. I hug my knees closer to me, curling into a ball as I hear them stop.
"Do you hear that?"
"Keep quiet," someone else snaps. They don't talk for a while.
I close my eyes tight. Maybe they'll go away if I'm quiet enough. Yes, that should work. I'll just pretend I'm not here, and they'll lose interest and go away. Like when you're supposed to play dead if you meet a bear in the woods…Come to think of it, that doesn't make much sense. Tony meets lots of bears in the forest whenever we're out hunting, and he never pretends he's dead. Maybe it's just one of those things that's only for humans. I turn to ask Bradley—
—only to find that he's not with me.
A small, worried sound comes out of my mouth before I can stop myself, my hands shaking as I turn around where I sit and try to see if maybe I stuffed him in the corner of the space before I crawled inside. The space is empty. He's not here. He's not here.
"Go back downstairs. I'll meet you there shortly."
I feel my eyes become hot and wet. I'm getting more scared by the second. I curl into a tighter ball. Where did I leave him? I need him! I take him everywhere with me! What am I going to tell Momma? She gave me Bradley—she'll be sooo mad! I hug my knees tighter, sniffling louder than I should have, and by the time I notice how loud, it's too late—I hear the door opening and footsteps walking in.
Lots of panicky thoughts crash around in my brain now. I didn't think before—what if the other vampires don't like me like the blond lady? What if I wasn't even supposed to be exploring? I didn't ask permission or anything! Ohhhh, I must be in so much trouble!
"You're not in trouble."
The voice startles me enough for me to raise my head. Edward is crouched down in front of me, staring. I just stare back for a bit, I can't help it. We really do look alike. Except he's a boy. And his hair isn't curly…and his eyes are gold, not brown. But everything else on his face is like mine. He's not wearing the same clothes as his flickers. He must have changed them…
He still looks sad, though.
The staring starts to make me uncomfortable. Momma and Tony said to never talk to strangers, so that's what I'm going to do. I hide my face again, trying to pretend he's not there.
But is he a stranger? I know his name. And Momma and Tony seem to know him… Why do they call it "stranger" anyway? There's nothing strange looking about him...except for being a vampire, but that's not really the same. He does act kind of strange with how he never does anything when he's in his room. And what he just said, too, that was strange. How did he know I was scared? I didn't say anything—"
"Because I can read minds," he says.
I feel my eyes widen. I raise my head to look up at him. He looks serious. I test him, to see if he's not lying. I think of a color—red—and then ask him if he can see what color I'm thinking of. He answers right. Momma said the vampire police had someone who could read minds too. Not like Nahuel. He can only get hunches.
Maybe Edward was the vampire Nahuel was talking about.
"No."
He's upset now. Momma looks the same way whenever Tony's late coming home. He scoots closer, and I try to back further into the space. He stops when he sees that, then grabs a handful of hair on his head and thinks really hard before answering.
"No. I'm not the vampire you're thinking of. His name is Aro. I'm Edward, I'm—" It looks like he's lost his voice. A couple of seconds pass before he gives up on what he was about to say and swallows hard.
"We're not with the Volturi. We're the Olympic coven. There are seven of us."
The Olympic coven, I repeat in my mind. Everything starts to make sense. Huilen said that all vampires have money since they can steal it and put it in banks to make more of it. Covens must need more of it since there are more of them traveling together.
But we're in a house. Momma, me, Tony, and the Volturi are the only ones who have a real home…right?
"This is our house…we're vegetarians." He touches his eyes, which I just realize are golden, like Momma's. "Like you." I stare at him in wonder. I thought me, Tony, and Momma were the only vegetarians. Miri was too, but I don't know about now. She might have gone back to drinking humans once we were gone.
"I'm sorry if I frightened you," he adds, after a while. He looks to the side and picks something up, and I gasp again when he shows it to me.
"Bradley!" He hands him to me, and I take him even though something in the back of my mind tells me I shouldn't take things from strangers. I don't care. I search Bradley, trying to see if he's okay. When it seems like he is, I hug him as hard as I can, rubbing my face against his mane, letting out a relieved sigh.
"Your mother's downstairs in the kitchen. Would you like to see her?" he asks me. I nod, letting him help me out of my hiding place.
I look at him from time to time as we walk down the hallway. He's tall. Not as tall as the big man, but tall and…and lean. Like Tony. Well, Tony's shorter than him, but Momma's always saying that he's not done growing yet.
"Does Tony grow fast a lot?"
I forgot he could read minds. I peek at him from the corner of my eye as we start going down the stairs. I'm still not sure if I should talk to him. Momma and Tony seem to know him, but I don't. And he is kind of strange with how he never does anything and looks sad and dirty all the time. I wonder how long, in that flicker I saw, he went without taking a bath. Do vampires even need to take baths? Momma does just as much as Tony and me, and I know we have to take a bath, or we'll stink, but Momma has never smelled bad. And there was that time we couldn't shower for three days at Nahuel's house 'cause the pipes were broken, and Momma didn't smell any different. Tony did, though. And Miri too. It's a good thing they didn't choose that week to play mud war….
"It all right," he tells me, as we're walking down the stairs. "You don't have to talk if you're uncomfortable. You're right…I am a stranger to you."
My shoulders relax. Once we've made it down I tune in to Momma's voice again. I really do need to ask her what's going on. Her voice is coming from a room on my left with bright lights and tiled floor—the kitchen? I don't ask Edward out loud. I just go straight to the doorway without thinking. Momma's there, but she's not alone. Tiny Lady is leaning against one of the counters, and the lady with the honey hair is on the left, sitting across from Momma.
And they're all staring.
I zip up to Momma extra fast, climbing into her lap and hiding my face in her hair. Bradley's squished between us. I feel their eyes on me, and I don't like it. Not one bit. What's going on? I ask her, my chin touching the skin on her shoulder. Why are we here? She hugs me back, telling me in her head to be patient.
"Carlisle, Jasper and Rosalie are going to head off Sam Uley. That should buy some time while Emmett, Alice and I try to locate Tony," Edward says all of a sudden from behind us.
Who's Sam Uley? And why do they have to find Tony? What's going on?
Something's wrong. Really really wrong. I lean back a little so I can look at her face. She looks stressed. Her eyes are wide, and it looks like she's about to cry. Her hand goes to the back of my head and pushes me down so my chin is resting on her shoulder again. It stays there for a long time, her fingers stroking my hair, but it doesn't help.
Where's Tony?
The phone rings. After a while, the blond man comes in and talks extra fast, and from where I'm at, I see Edward getting angry. More people come in and out of the kitchen— the pretty one, the scarred one, but I try to hide from them. All of the noise is too much. Everything is happening too fast, too much like when Tony had to leave the first time. Did he leave again? Is that why I couldn't find him? Is he hurt?
I can't take it anymore. I scream my question in my head, trying again to get Momma's attention. It works. She flinches, and the hand cradling my head cradles it harder. She still doesn't say anything to me, though, so my throat gets heavy and I feel the tears start to build. I lean back a little to rub my eyes. Because of that, I almost miss the feel of her hand moving down, covering the back of my neck.
I gasp, my hands falling limp as she opens her mind to me.
T
2009, three days before departure.
Blues. Greens. Reds. Bright, shining golds. They make a gentle tinkling sound as I sift through them, grabbing handful after handful, slowly emptying the small space. Earrings, necklaces, bracelets, rings, key chains, but that's not all. Pieces of odd-shaped metal, old-school bottle caps, things that mean nothing and that I can't remember taking. But they're all shiny. They all glow in their own way. I had to have them.
And now I'm giving them up.
"You're still here."
I ignore him as I set the floorboard back in place. I rattle the bag, shaking the contents inside so I could see them all one last time. The blue necklace isn't in here. Miri must still have it. I zip up the top.
She can keep it.
"I would have thought you and your family would be halfway to the States by now."
My teeth clench, but I stop myself before the pain in my head starts. I let out an impatient huff as I collect everything and push myself to my feet. I turn around, only to find him blocking my way out, leaning against the doorway as he inspects his fingernails.
"Move," I say.
"Make me," he responds, bored.
I growl, turning on my heel, crossing the small room to get to the window. I toss the now-full bag onto the lawn below. It makes a satisfying scrunch sound as it hits the grass, rolling to its side before coming to a stop.
"Tell your mother I expect to see her soon."
"Fuck off," I say under my breath, as I prepare to jump.
Suddenly, I can't breathe. I feel his arm around my throat, his chokehold lifting me off the floor. All I can kick is air. The pain in my head erupts, and my mouth opens to cry out, but there's no air to do it. I struggle. I claw at his arms, trying to will the shards to return, but they don't. They won't come back.
Just like in the field, I'm on my own.
"Oh, so now you're a tough guy, huh?" he grunts, as he tightens the lock he has me in. The dull whitewash ceiling blurs. The pain in my head gets sharper, and from my haze I can barely pick up his words.
"Should have—trouble from the beginning—never again—teach you a—lesson."
An unseen force splits us apart and knocks us into opposite walls, the house shaking from the impact, plaster from the ceiling drifting to the floor. My eyes catch a glimpse of green floating in between us as I try to slide myself up, leaning on the dented wall for support, when suddenly I feel his hands on my collar.
I snarl, pushing him away, throwing all my body weight into the action. In the time it takes for him to crash back into the opposite wall, I feel the familiar energy around my hand, and without thinking, I grasp the shard that has chosen to materialize and help me. I whip it out as he regains his footing.
He can't see it. No one can, except me. But he knows it's there. I told him enough about it. We circle each other as though this is just another day, another sparring match between us—him spewing about how to attack and me trying to keep up. Our chests heave from the struggle we just had. His black hair is messy, and his sweat makes it stick to his forehead. His clothes are rumpled. I know I must look the same.
"Go ahead," he whispers, eyes dull and unblinking—corpse eyes. "Carve me up nice. Miri needs all the practice she can get."
My palms sweat. A violent chill runs down my spine. I grip the shard harder, ignoring the sharp blade digging into my flesh and drawing my blood.
"You can't do it, can you?" he asks softly as we keep walking around each other. I breathe faster. My hand begins to shake. "No, of course you can't. You're weak…just like your mother."
"Shut up!" I snarl.
His words stir up the memory of what happened before they arrived. It still burns, hits me in places I'm not expecting…but he's wrong.
I know he's wrong.
"It will only be on sunny days," he promises. "You said you wanted him to have more sympathy for the humans. How can he learn to do that if he never interacts with them?"
"What about Joham?" she asks. She's still sounds stern, but there's a weakness in her tone. I think he's wearing her down. "You said that he—"
"He's half-way around the world! I told you, he's too busy to deal with us right now. We're safe."
"I don't know…"
"It'll be fine…you know I won't let anything happen to him… He needs this. You can only do so much. Some things…can only be learned from certain people. It's just a trip to the marketplace every once in a while, Bella. Relax."
I know what he is.
"The vampires…they reap their sorrow over the loss of their humanity, go on about the never ending thirst and having to come to terms with what they are…of being the personifications of absolute power, invincibility and evil…But they know nothing. They don't know the pain of being caught in-between…."
I know his tricks.
"…not like us." He looks down at me and I stare back, captivated. "Beings like us need to stick together."
I know it was all a lie.
"You're nothing without us."
I know…
The boulder explodes. As I shield my face from the stray gravel, I hear his roar of approval and my hearts feels like it's expanding in my chest. I can't hide the smirk that stretches across my face.
"She's strong. Stronger than you."
He smiles at my words, but it's not a real smile. Not remotely. The hollow, imitation…thing on his face isn't something I can stand to look at, yet I do anyway. I want to chuck the shard at him, right between the eyes…and never have to see his face morph into that expression again.
"She's weak," he says softly. "Nothing more than a lamb cast in iron. She can't stand on her own; she's crippled. Even you must see that." His face darkens. "No, she'll always need a crutch…a shepherd she can look to for guidance and shelter."
"She figured out how to save us all, how to deliver us without anyone else's help."
"And put you all in jeopardy because she couldn't handle raising you both on her own," he retorts. "Don't forget. She sought us out, walked right into my open arms—"
"And then rejected you."
All emotion is wiped from his face. My free hand goes to the side of my head to feel the scar hidden by my hair…I can still hear Miri's scream.
I'm not blind. Not like before. He must know that by now…after everything that has happened.I lean in closer, locking eyes with him, still pointing the shard, relishing the effect my words are having.
"She saw you for what you are and will never look back. You'll always be alone."
His expression hardens. He stops walking. I notice that I'm closest to the door, so I take my chance and leave. The shard disintegrates once I pass under the doorpost, the cut on my hand already sealing into a scar. I wipe the blood on my jeans as I walk down the stairs. The adrenaline is starting to wear off, making me feel the effects of our fight: the tiredness, the aches, the dizzy, unfocused feeling like I'm dehydrated. My drooping eyes go to the shadows playing on the railings. The sun is nearly down. Twilight is just beginning.
I'm so dead.
Even if I hurry, I won't make it back to the hotel by sundown. And Mom must know by now that I'm gone. She must be pissed…but I had to. It wasn't for a bad reason. She has to see that it was different this time. This time I was trying to help…
Regardless, that doesn't seem to help with the familiar pounding in my head. I close my eyes tight as I make it to the foot of the stairs, feeling my body sway. I grab the stair railing behind me, trying to steady myself.
No. Not now. Don't do this now.
I let my lungs fill to the brim slowly, trying to relax my mind. The pain lessons. I start again towards the door, each inhale I take feeling like the difference between accomplishment and failure.
"She walked away from me…but not from your father."
I stop.
Every instinct in me tells me to just keep walking. Ignore him. Remember that he's talking out of his ass. Everything I know from before tells me I should leave. And like before, despite knowing all this, I don't move.
"She can't stand to be without him. It eats away at her. Every day a little bit more of her dies."
I listen to his steps as he walks down the stairs, turning around just in time to catch his shadowed form reach the floor. Silence stretches between us, the faint light of the day moving steadily along the wall.
"One day, it'll become too much. She'll start to look for him, she'll ask around, she'll try to track him. And if he's not already ash, she'll succeed."
"Honing your inner poet?" I mutter sardonically, wiping a bead of sweat from my forehead. His eyes follow the way my arm shakes at the action. Anger flares in me, but it's short-lived with the increased pounding in my head. I try to let all emotion go, the anger, the betrayal, the annoyance…and the fear, but it's hard to do it with him staring at me like that—seeing more than I want him to.
Seeing through me.
"I'm simply stating the truth."
"You're simply talking out of your ass—"
"She's broken," he cuts in. He takes his first step towards me, stopping when he sees that I'm backing closer to the door. "You're not a fool. I know you've seen it as well. The way she holds herself, how some days she can't bring herself to leave the house to hunt, how she can't even bear to utter his name. It's nature taking its course. We're all self-preserving creatures. Our actions are always driven in some way to protect, to save ourselves. And if finding him will accomplish that…" I feel my back hitting the wood of the front door. My heart beats erratically, and every part of me is screaming "no" to his words, to his prophesized future…while a tiny part whispers "yes". But it's minuscule. I can smother it. Make sure it won't grow.
And it won't.
"It's only a matter of time. She can only live so long without resolution." I blink, and he's closer, only feet away. My head spins while he goes on in a mocking, dispassionate tone, "She'll be so thrilled…she'll do anything, give up anything to get him back. To keep him tethered to her—"
"You're wrong."
"Am I?" he asks sarcastically. "I know as much about him as you do, and yet even I can see how much of a hold he had on her. She adores him, and that won't change, no matter how much time passes."
"You don't know anything," I mutter, done with all of this. I turn my back on him and open the front door, only for it to slam shut in my face. I blink rapidly, eyes quickly finding his hand just inches above my head, pressed firmly over the wood. He looks down at me in cold contempt, before focusing on his hand. A prickle of fear makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end, mingling with my headache.
"I know…that despite her having every right to hate him for what he put her through, she still yearns for his touch."
An unconscious hiss escapes my mouth before I can stop it. He just continues on, talking to the wood, like I'm not there.
"It took my father years to perfect his technique, and even now he never completely reveals what he is exactly to his consorts. But your mother…" His eyes dart to mine, loathing making his nostrils flare. "Your father told her everything, and she still chose him. Unconditionally and unequivocally."
I say nothing.
"Do you know how uncommon it is for human-vampire relationships to survive past an initial meeting?" he goes on, his gaze becoming intense. "For the human to stick around willingly after the revelation? Do you have any idea how rare that kind of devotion is amongst humans?" He chuckles, closing his eyes, shaking his head.
"What are you—"
"Use your brain," he says through clenched teeth, eyes still closed. He's…seething. I don't want to know what he's imagining. "Men like your father…they all crave the same thing: sex and novelty. All the better if they can combine the two—"
"My mother is not a thing."
His eyes pop open, regarding me almost innocently. Shocked at my words. But I see past it.
"…Of course not. We're talking about your father, aren't we?"
"No. We're talking about your father."
His face re-hardens as he scoffs, removing his hand from the wood and turning so now his back is against the door, effectively cutting off my exit. He crosses his arms over his chest, staring down at me coolly as I consider how he subtly took my place against the door, forcing me to face him head on, where he stood only moments before.
No coincidence.
"Your father, my father, what's the difference? In the end they committed the same sin, used our mothers like whores for their own enjoyment and agenda and left them to die, broken and mutilated beyond repair. If there is any difference whatsoever, it's that your father was too much of an imbecile to terminate his arrangement adequately."
I try to concentrate, try to bring back the shards. The dizziness returns instead.
"For whatever reason, she caught your father's eye once, just for being who she was: a normal, boring, love-stricken, foolish girl. Can you imagine the stir she will bring once her status is known in our world? The only mortal survivor of a hybrid birth in vampire-human history. Her very existence is a novelty waiting to be claimed…"
He pushes himself off the door so he can lean down towards me, our faces in line with each other, noses inches apart. Green irises to dark brown. The heat of his breath on my face makes me recoil and start to back away, but he follows me, not letting me out of his sight.
"He'll take her from the both of you," he whispers, and not even the knowledge of his lies can stop the dread from blossoming in me. My heels hit the beginning of the stairs, forcing me to come to a stop. "No one, not even the fool that is your father, would turn down such a prize, and when that happens, where will that leave you and your sister?"
I'll always be here. Nothing will ever take me away from the both of you.
"That's never going to happen," I manage to get out, despite the doubt wrapping its tendrils around my throat. "None of it. She loves us. She would never…She could never—"
"He tired of her humanity when enough time passed," he interrupts scathingly. I growl at how close he's come, but it does nothing to stop his words. "She was nothing then. Do you honestly believe that when they meet again she'll pass up the opportunity to be adored? Loved? To go from a nameless peasant to a queen? Or that he'll want the fruits of his disgusting fetish trolling around, reminding everyone of his perversion? No. He'll ache for her, but she'll bow to him, because in the end, no matter how impenetrable her skin has become, no matter how golden her eyes have stayed, she'll still be that same, awkward seventeen year-old who blindly swore her allegiance to a monster."
"No, she won't."
"You don't know her—"
"And you do?" I spit. It all simmers beneath my skin, traveling up my veins and into my head, where it bangs against the inside of my skull again and again. I bite back a groan, clenching my teeth, glaring down at the floor. He's so pleased with himself, I can feel it.
"You're honestly claiming that card?" I say to the floor in a low voice. "Like you're some all-knowing, all-seeing—"
"I know more than you will ever know about her!" he snarls, grabbing my arm. I rip it out of his grasp, turning away. "She's told me things that you can't possibly imagine. Priceless details that are worth more than the rarest of stones."
"Fuck you," I mutter, as needles burrow into my temples. I catch the railing of the stairs to my left.
"Always sacrificing. From her childhood to her teen years, when she should have been having fun and making mistakes…a parent to her parents, nameless and un-extraordinary…and then he entered her life. Suddenly there was someone who could take care of her, who noticed her. Let her relax. Who better a caretaker, a protector, than an immortal?"
My grip on the railing tightens until a splitting crack reaches my ears. I start to clench my teeth instead, but that only makes the pain worse. Words, words, words. I'd give anything for him to shut up.
"Her deepest, most desperate desire of her heart, finally within reach. Undying love and an eternity to experience it. Wholesome and true. Nothing like the joke of her parent's union. No fear of one abandoning the other because the going got tough, no fear of love that faded with time. No, of course not. If she could feel so much for him, if she could already be ready to give her heart to him while human, surely it meant he felt the same…"
Shut up and leave me alone.
"But we both know where her dream ended. Yet she still burns for him, and she will never stop. It's impossible for her now, because of what she is. Of what you turned her into. Nothing will ever be enough. Every relationship for her now, every shade of affectionshe feels for another will pale in comparison. Friendship, acquaintance, even a mother's love—"
"How would you know…when you never even had one?" I mumble through the pain.
Silence.
I'm breathing fast and hard through my nose, barely hanging on. The urge to rip and tear fights with the urge to sink to the floor. The internal battle makes my head throb, makes the wooden floors blur, and makes me vaguely aware of the crushing quiet around us. It takes a while before I can actually start to pick up that almost inaudible buzzing sound that seems to make itself known when there is nothing else to listen to. I finally wrench my gaze away from the floor.
It's dark now, but a beam of moonlight from one of the upper windows hits his body perfectly, like a spot light. A jolt of fear and alarm runs down my entire form. I can feel his rage, animalistic and all-consuming, seep into the air around me as our eyes meet. I break out into another sweat. Any other time I wouldn't be this spooked…
But this isn't like any other time.
"My mother was willing to allow an inhuman…thing grow in her womb, leave her tribe, her culture, even her own family in order to be with my father. While she was still human, I might add…I know enough," he says softly.
He's starts moving towards me, and I stumble to the left, deeper into the hall on the side of the stairs, toward the kitchen. It all hits me at this point. It'll be a good hour before Mom makes it to the house. I don't have the shards to help me. I can barely stay conscious. I'm a 3 year-old hybrid vamp who can't even pass for fourteen, alone with a 150-something year old hybrid vamp who I've royally pissed off, and who is a master at practically all forms of hand-to hand combat.
My right hand catches the corner of a side table just as another wave of nausea makes my knees shake. The space between us is hot and stuffy. The heat makes my mind feel like jelly, makes my vision blurry and dull again, but even in the haze, I can still catch the glint of his pupils as he watches me.
"You think you are so special? With your slashing gift? Your family? Your mother's need to deny your natures with animal blood? You think that will save you?" He scoffs darkly again, and I flinch involuntarily. "It's just an illusion meant to cover up what we are in the end: bastard children. Forsaken sons that not even the reaper wants. Rejects of the monstrous kind, and everyone knows it. Why do you think she wants to keep you and your sister way from me? Don't you see?" He gestures, first to himself, then to me. "We're the same."
I'm past talking at this point. I'm going to be sick. The room is spinning. I feel like my mind is sinking into an ocean, and yet everything burns. It's too hot. I just want to close my eyes, but I know I can't. I can't pass out again. Not here.
"No?" he asks, in mock surprise at the sight of my feverish eyes and of me sluggishly shaking my head. He closes the distance between us, speaking in a soft, almost coaxing tone. "We're both responsible for them, aren't we? Both charged with the task of picking up the pieces, fixing the mess they left behind."
My knees finally fail. So does my grip on the table, yet my knees never hit the floor. I feel something grasp my left arm. It holds me up, keeps my feet from slipping underneath me. Pain shoots up behind my eyeballs, tugging my eyelids shut.
"…both marked by murder from the day we were born," his voice echoes before I sink into nothingness.
Present
THWACK!
The sound echoes in the forest. Animals shift in the trees at the intrusion, some even leaving despite the presence of night. Like a beacon, the shard glows bright and unyielding against the darkness. I let it fade. The ones hovering in front of me glow brighter as though trying to get my attention and earn my favor. Without looking too hard, I pick one and fling it as hard as I can, watching it spin through the darkness until finally embedding itself in the bark of a tree with a resounding thwack. The sound is comforting in its predictability; each time I fling the shard into the unknown, it still ends in the same place.
Something's tailing me.
They're faint, the footsteps, but not soundless. Hell, they might as well be a drum beat, the way they pound the ground with each step they take. They're far behind me now, miles deeper into the forest. It's probably some sort of large animal looking for a meal, though if it is, it must be the stupidest animal on earth. Deer and lions may not be able to make computers, but their danger senses top humans' any day.
Whatever it is, it's getting closer. And the closer it gets, the harder I throw my shards into the tree. I'm still thirsty but I'm calmer. Less…all over the place. At least, I think I am. Nothing's changed, but it's easier to focus on further ahead, believe it or not. I couldn't before. All I could think about was erasing it, but that's not going to happen. She's found him now, and he's not going away.
I chuck the shard harder into the darkness. He wasn't completely right. Mom wasn't lying. She really didn't know that he was here. But everything else…it was going to happen. Just like how he said it would. Maybe it wouldn't have been now if we had stayed in Massachusetts, but in the end, once Reni was older…
I keep picturing the sneer on his face when he finds out. He'll gloat about it, rub it in. It would be impossible for him not to. He'll make sure Miri's not around when he does it; she's already pissed off at him without me being involved, but he'll still get the last laugh. Then he'll play somber and sympathetic and coolly aloof, like a soldier that has already seen it all. He'll give me his false pity, tell me he's sorry, and then invite me to join them, offer me a way out, and for good measure get me to keep my shield. Tell me that I don't need to give it to Reni and Mom like how I planned. Not when she has him to protect them now. And when I'm caught in his web, he'll start his lectures again.
The sky rumbles. A gust of wind blows my way, pushing my hair away from my face and drying the blood on my jacket, but that's the least of my concern. I let the shard slip out of my grasp as I try to process what has just hit my nose.
And I thought that Nathan kid smelled foul.
It's a mix of bitterness and unwashed…something. Animal? I'm not sure. The bitterness wrinkles my nose without constraint—dirty rag water. The kind that builds up after you mop up a floor. I would know. Angelina always used the same solution whenever she mopped up the cantina, and the end result would always be a bucket full of the dark grey, rancid-smelling water. But the second part of the scent? It's like the rotten cherry on top of the vomit-inducing ice cream sundae. My mind draws up memories of unwashed skin, sweat, dried mud that has the slightest hint of shit mixed in with it. Anything that can possibly make up the earthy, impossible disgustingness that is this scent's finishing touch.
I don't stick around to breath in a stronger nose-full. I turn around and start sprinting the opposite direction, toward home. It's not just the awfulness of the smell. It's…done something to me. Rung an alarm that hasn't been rung in me in a long time. Forget olfactory senses, forget neurons that charge and send the signals from my brain to everywhere else in my body. A simple message sprouts in the root of my bones, like a cancer. It seeps outward, soaking into my blood and tissue, circulating until it's everywhere and anywhere, translating into one word:
Run.
My knees brush against the leaves of shrubs, feet somehow finding uneven ground to almost trip over. It's like the entire forest is actively trying to make me fail. All I can hear now is my frantic pants and the crunching of leaves, the squelch of mud, the grinding of dirt under superior weight, thundering towards me like a stampede.
It's all in my head, I remind myself, as I see new shapes in the branches of the trees. Menacing now. Constantly moving. I shut my eyes briefly before shaking my head, pushing my legs faster. The world is spinning. No bit of bark is unique anymore, no branch, not even a stray leaf on the floor. It's all the same, and with that knowledge, I realize that direction means nothing. Not when the steady drum of their feet charging towards me is like the cancer of fear that has permeated my body: anywhere and everywhere. It's all going haywire: first my vision, then my hearing, and even my sense of smell, despite the wind blowing fresh air on my face. The scent is stuck in my nostrils, soaked into my brain; no matter how hard I try to run, I can't escape it.
So it's not much of a surprise when I'm knocked to the ground with enough force for me to see stars.
I feel its claws pressing into the skin of my back. It has four legs, one of which is pressed against the base of my neck. It's huge. I can't move, be it because I'm hurt or because of fear, I'm not quite sure. Damp earth sticks to my cheek. All I know is its repulsive scent and hot, disgusting breaths hitting my right ear.
It lets out a growl. Anything in me remotely resembling reason is erased.
Chaos. A pain-filled yelp, followed by a thunderous crash behind me. I jump to my feet, the shards pulsing and zipping around me like they're on speed, cocooning me in a protective sphere of razor-sharp destruction. My hands are shaking. My veins feel like they've been electrified. A familiar pulling sensation, like a string tied around my heart, tugs at me—the shards, beckoning me from behind to finish the job. I turn around. The tree is practically demolished. Splintered in half down the middle, it branches bent and crushed under…
A body.
I blink slowly. Once. Twice. Three times. Four times, heart skipping a beat. I approach the mess slowly, finally sinking to my knees beside it—no. Him.
No fur.
No paws.
No teeth.
No claws.
Just russet-colored flesh, drenched in dark red blood. My shards are embedded in his torso, sharp and effectively cutting deeper into his already bloodied chest as he breathes in and out in rasping, shallow gasps. I stumble back as he catches my eye. He glares at me with such hatred and loathing, but I'm too shocked to even hiss in defense.
His weight, his breaths…his claws digging into the flesh of my back…Staring at him only serves to send me into a deeper mind-fuck. Even though I know it's pointless, my eyes keep searching his limbs, looking for claws, teeth, fur that isn't there. I grasp a handful of my hair, hand shaking like I'm on crack. A familiar dull pain pricks in my temple.
More footsteps are coming my way. My eyes find the punctured, damaged flesh on his torso again. I creep closer to him, panic starting to settle in. My hand starts forward, to pull out the shards but he flinches at the sight. I let my hand fall back into my lap.
Okay. My eyes are fixed on the glassy sheen of the shards stuck in his chest. Okay. I reach out to the warmth, the intensity, the individual pulses that are the only inclination of their existence. I breathe in an out, ignoring everything, willing the shards to pulse in synchronization with the beats of my heart.
But they're resisting.
They refuse to be silenced, to recede into nothingness.
It's his own fault for what happened to him, the beast growls. He deserved what he got.
"No."
A crash to my right startles me to my feet. I turn just as something huge, furry, and alive barrels into me and causes us both to collide into a nearby tree, the impact snapping the trunk like a twig and sending us into the ground in a tangle of blood-soaked fabric, fur and splintered wood. My eyes are shut to keep the bits of leaf and splinter out of them. I try to wrestle myself out, but it's no use. This one is bigger than the first that tackled me, and like that one, it has me pinned. I shake the debris out of my hair, opening my eyes.
Leering down at me, teeth bared and growling, is a massive fucking wolf.
Yup. I did it. I ended with a cliffie. :p
C'mon now, you had to have seen that coming. I haven't had one of these since ch. 5...
Anywho, in case some of you don't hang out on ADF (awesome place. If you haven't already, you should totally check it out), I've been in the middle of enlisting in the Air Force since August of last year. I was finally sworn in on June 5th :)
So...thoughts? Reviews make my day. Likes, dislikes? I welcome both as long as they're polite.
Until next time...