I had a little trouble deciding which direction to take with this chapter, but ultimately it seemed like the story would be more coherent if I stuck with Bella and wrapped up her misadventures before picking up with Edward and Elle's search for Peter.

Warning: this chapter deals with some potentially upsetting topics such as depression and suicidal thoughts, so please read with caution if this is a trigger for you.

Chapter 6: Odyssey

Bella found a river at the base of the mountains, and swam for miles through the rushing water until she felt reasonably confident that there was no way the Cullens could pick up her trail. After leaving her watery sanctuary, she wandered aimlessly, not bothering to keep track of the passage of time, until she eventually found herself on the bank of the Hudson River, staring across the dark water at Manhattan Island.

It was fitting, she supposed, that she had ended up back in New York - after all, this was where she had spent most of her time with Peter. If she could still feel an echo of his presence anywhere, surely it would be here. She briefly questioned the advisability of venturing into an area so densely populated with humans, but her appetite hadn't improved in the slightest since she'd run away from the Cullens. Besides, where else was she supposed to go?

Just to be safe, she tried to steer clear of major thoroughfares, but it was impossible to avoid people forever in New York City. A few blocks from Peter's old apartment, a group of college kids stumbled out of a bar, spilling onto the street a mere five feet in front of her. Bella froze, staring at them as if they were from another planet, and after a moment they noticed her too.

Their raucous laughter ceased as they looked her over. "Why is she dressed like that?" whispered a girl with short purple hair.

"She's soaked - must be freezing..."

"Look, her shoes are missing! Do you think she's been mugged?"

Startled, Bella glanced down at herself; she'd noticed when she first woke up that someone - Alice and Elle struck her as the most likely culprits - had put her in a royal blue silk dress and a ridiculous pair of shoes that were essentially just stiletto-heeled soles held on with ribbons, but since then she hadn't paid much attention to the state of her clothing. Now that she thought about it, though, she remembered that her left shoe had fallen apart before she even made it out of the mountains, and its mate had washed away in the river. Luckily, her dress had stayed on, but it was sodden, filthy, and tattered, not to mention totally inappropriate for New York's winter weather.

Her head snapped back up as one of the guys approached her. "Hey, are you okay? Do you need help?" He stuck his hand out, right under her nose. "Come on, let's get you inside."

Bella's gaze locked on the proffered appendage, her eyes widening and nostrils flaring in amazement at her own reaction to the boy's gesture - or rather her lack of one. A few months ago this intrusion into her personal space would have sent her into a blind panic, but she didn't feel the least bit threatened now. If the human tried anything, she wouldn't even need her shield to defend herself; she could take him down with her bare hands, or she could simply stand there and let him do his worst - a blow from such a pitifully weak, frail creature wouldn't hurt her any more than a puff of air. Still, as wonderful as the total absence of fear felt, she didn't like him coming so close to her, didn't want him touching her and discovering the hardness of her skin...

Just before his hand landed on her shoulder, she bared her teeth and let out a low warning growl. The human stumbled backward, his face going slack with shock. "Whoa! Guys, she just growled at me!"

"Maybe she's on drugs," one of his friends suggested.

"Yeah, maybe it's one of those weird ones that make people act like zombies," a second girl said nervously. "Let's get out of here before she tries to chew our faces off or something. We'll call the cops to come pick her up."

That, Bella knew, would be very bad. As the humans retreated, she slipped into a narrow alley and, launching herself into the air with a powerful leap, caught the edge of the bar's roof and swung herself up. She was fairly certain the police wouldn't look for her on the rooftops.

Having only been to Peter's apartment once, she was afraid she might not be able to find it again, but at last she did, then wondered if it had been a wasted journey. After all, months had passed since his death, so surely his belongings had been cleared out; for all she knew, there might even be a new tenant living there. Still, she'd come all this way, so she decided there was no harm in taking a quick peek inside, just in case his family had missed something.

To her astonishment, everything was exactly as he'd left it, and the lingering traces of his scent, which she had never been able to fully appreciate with her weak human nose, hit her like a tidal wave, making her eyes burn with the phantom pain of tears she could no longer shed. Drifting through the empty rooms as if in a trance, she followed her nose to where the scent was strongest - his still-unmade bed - curled into a ball on top of the wrinkled sheets, and buried her face in his pillow. Dry sobs wracked her body as she realized that, while this was the closest she would ever get to being in his arms again, it was nowhere near enough to soothe the aching emptiness inside her.

###

She didn't move for the rest of the night or most of the following day - in fact, she might never have moved again if she hadn't heard someone entering the apartment. She held still for another minute or two, hoping the intruder would go away, but they didn't; instead, their footsteps came closer. Reluctantly lifting her head from the pillow, she got to her feet just before the bedroom door opened, and she found herself face to face with her former boss.

Nathan squinted at her, struggling to make out her features in the dim light that filtered in through the tightly closed blinds, and then his eyes widened as he finally recognized her. "Bella Swan?" He groped for the doorframe and clutched it for support, looking as if he'd seen a ghost. "I thought... I mean, I tried to get in touch with you, after Peter... Anyway, I heard you were in the hospital. They told me you were brain dead."

He watched her expectantly, and it slowly dawned on her that he was waiting for some kind of response. She didn't know if she could produce one - it had been so long since she'd spoken to anyone, but this was Peter's brother, who he had loved, who might actually miss him as much as she did. For him, she supposed she ought to make the effort. Her mouth opened and closed soundlessly a couple of times before she finally managed to say, "I was." She paused for a second to marvel at the sound of her new voice, which came out clear and sweet, not at all like the rusty croak she'd expected. Then, realizing she hadn't adequately answered Nathan's implicit question, she added, "I got better."

There was a time when he would have argued that brain dead people did not 'get better', would have insisted on an explanation that fit the rules of the rational world he was determined to live in...but not now. Now it hardly seemed to matter. He was a little curious, however, about how she had ended up looking like she'd just come from a post-apocalyptic cocktail party. "What the hell happened to you?"

"You don't look so great yourself," she retorted, her eyebrows arching as she scrutinized him.

Nathan winced; he was nowhere near as disheveled as her - he had an image to maintain as a newly minted Congressman, after all - but he couldn't deny that it was becoming increasingly difficult to hide the way his perfectly tailored suits had started to hang off him, and the network of engorged blood vessels lacing the whites of his eyes that hinted at a long stretch of sleepless nights. "Yeah, well, it's been tough since Peter... Ma still won't tell me exactly what happened to him, and I just keep wondering, if I'd been there..."

"It wouldn't have made any difference," Bella said flatly. "He'd absorbed the ability to generate radiation, and he couldn't control it. There was nothing you could've done to stop him from exploding. It wasn't your fault." The words sounded trite and unconvincing to her own ears, but she hoped hearing them might help Nathan.

"I know it's not my fault Peter ended up on Kirby Plaza that night," he assured her. "It's yours."

His words hit Bella like a slap in the face, and for the first time in a little over a month, she felt something other than grief. "What?" she snapped, a hint of anger creeping into her monotone.

"I pushed him to get close to you because I hoped you'd help him get his head out of the clouds, make him forget all that nonsense about being a hero; instead you encouraged his crazy fantasies, and now he's gone! None of this would've happened if you'd just told him to grow the hell up!"

"You're wrong," she hissed. "He would have tried to stop Sylar no matter what I said, because that's who he was - not that you would know, since you couldn't be bothered with him. You just wanted me to keep him out of the way so you could focus on your campaign. Well, you got your wish; you have your seat in Congress, and Peter will never tarnish your precious reputation again. I hope you're happy."

Nathan's stricken expression told her she'd hit a nerve, but she couldn't bring herself to care; it was costing her every ounce of restraint she possessed not to spring at him and... She didn't know what she might do then, but she doubted it would end well for him. "Get out," she ordered, her voice dropping into a low, menacing snarl.

He just blinked at her. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me. Get out before I do something we'll both regret. Now!"

Despite her best efforts, she took a halting step toward him, then another, and he instinctively backed away. He had never thought of Bella Swan as being particularly intimidating - quite the opposite, in fact - but there was something different about her now, some indefinable air of danger in her almost feral expression as she glared at him with her fingers hooked into claws and her lips curling back to reveal teeth so white they gleamed in the shadows, teeth whose edges looked a lot sharper than they should be. Then, as she came closer, he noticed that her eyes were red, though not merely bloodshot like his; her irises had actually turned the color of freshly spilled blood.

That was the last straw; ignoring the beleaguered but strident voice of rationality which insisted that it was absurd for him to feel threatened by his ex-intern, Nathan turned around and bolted for the front door.

Once he was gone, Bella's fury soon dissipated, and her depression rushed back in to take its place, this time accompanied by doubt. Was Nathan right? Was Peter's death her fault? There was nothing she could have said or done to keep him away from Kirby Plaza that night, she honestly believed that, but what if she had gotten to him sooner, if she hadn't been so stupid as to let herself get kidnapped? Could she have stopped him from losing control, like she had when he'd first absorbed Ted's power?

Devastated and tormented by the thought that he might still be alive if not for her failings, she reflected that she'd been wrong earlier, when she had concluded that she had nothing to fear from the college students outside the bar. It seemed some humans were still able to hurt her after all.

###

The next interruption came at night. Bella heard the lock clicking open, but it sounded different from the quick twist of a key that had announced Nathan's entrance; whoever was out there now scraped around for several seconds, as if they were having trouble fitting their key in properly. Eventually he - judging by the heaviness of his footsteps, she felt certain it was a man - got in, then proceeded to prowl through the apartment, stopping now and then to poke around. Of course, Bella could hear every move he made, but she could tell he was trying to be stealthy, and it occurred to her that this late-night visitor might be a burglar.

Enraged at the idea of someone pilfering Peter's things, she slipped out of the bedroom and crept up behind the trespasser, a thirty-something blond man whose scent revealed him to be an evolved human, though not one she'd ever seen before. Unlike his, her movements truly were silent, yet he seemed to sense her presence, because he suddenly spun around, shining his flashlight directly at the place where she had been half a second ago. Finding nothing there, he continued his search, only to stop and repeat his actions twice more. Each time Bella flitted out of view just before he caught a glimpse of her, but at last he became convinced it wasn't just his imagination.

"All right, I know you're there. Think you're being clever, turning invisible right before I catch you, don't you? Well, joke's over, so come on out. It's you, isn't it, Claude? Come out, and I promise not to hurt you."

"I'm not Claude, but if you're here to steal stuff, you'll wish I was."

"Bloody hell!" He whirled around again, and this time Bella made no attempt to hide. As the flashlight's beam illuminated her form, the sight of her only seemed to startle him more. "Vampire..."

She cocked her head in a manner that could have indicated curiosity, or that she was sizing him up to be her next meal. "You know what I am?"

"Yeah, I've met a few of your kind before. Didn't count on finding one of you lurking in here, though. What are you doing here?"

Her red eyes narrowed. "I'd say I have more reason to be here than you. Who are you, anyway?"

"I'm sorry, it was terribly rude of me not to introduce myself. I'm Adam, Adam Monroe."

She let out a soft snort at that. "Well, at least you didn't say 'Bond, James Bond'."

"And you wouldn't happen to be Bella Swan, would you?" Once he'd gotten past the initial shock of encountering a vampire when he'd only come back to search for some clue as to where Peter might have disappeared to after their escape, Adam had started thinking there was something familiar about the girl, and finally it clicked - her face was strikingly similar to the one Candice had imitated while taunting Peter about his lost love. Obviously that was her human form, and Peter hadn't mentioned anything about his girlfriend being a vampire, but the vivid scarlet of her eyes told Adam it was a fairly recent development.

"How do you know my name?"

"Oh, that little incident on Kirby Plaza is all the talk at the Company-"

"You're with Primatech?" she growled, her expression turning dangerous again.

"Heavens, no! Until recently, I was their prisoner."

"Oh." She seemed to relax, and her gaze slid away from his face, her interest in continuing their conversation visibly waning.

Adam, on the other hand, was very interested in her. When Peter first told him about her, he wasn't terribly impressed with her shielding abilities, even if it sounded like she'd come up with some rather creative uses for such a basic power, but now that she was a vampire... Since Peter had seemingly vanished off the face of the earth, perhaps he could make use of her instead.

"I heard all sorts of things in lockup," he began in the same caring, sympathetic tone he'd used to gain Peter's confidence. "They could've saved him, you know; they have a treatment that would have dampened his powers and prevented him from becoming radioactive, but they did nothing because, as you've probably heard, the explosion was part of some mad scheme to bring about their version of the greater good, and they decided Peter was an acceptable sacrifice. Terrible business."

That definitely recaptured her attention, though she didn't react with the anger he'd hoped for. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Just thought you ought to know. I thought you'd want revenge on the people responsible for taking Peter from you."

Bella's shoulders twitched in an indifferent shrug. "What's the point? It wouldn't bring him back."

Adam was momentarily stumped - what was he supposed to do with someone who couldn't be motivated by revenge? Somehow, he didn't think his other favorite inducement, power, would work on her either... He'd spent centuries learning the art of manipulation, though, so it didn't take him long to come up with another approach. "Is that what you want? To see him again?"

"More than anything, but it's impossible," she said sadly. "He's dead."

"That's true, and I don't know of any human or vampire with the power to raise the dead. I'm afraid you'll have to go to him."

"You mean I'd have to die." Bella knew she should be appalled by this suggestion...and yet, as she thought it over, she had to admit it really wasn't so unreasonable. After all, with Peter and her parents lost to her forever, what did she have to live for? Who would miss her? She supposed the Cullens might, but they had each other; she'd been nothing but a blight on their happy, perfect lives, which was why she had left in the first place. They were better off without her. There was just one problem... "That's easier said than done for someone like me."

"I can help." At her incredulous look, Adam elaborated, "Of course I'm not strong enough to tear you apart, but Primatech has a poison that'll do the job - works so fast you won't feel a thing - and I can get it for you. You just have to help me get inside."

Bella's head tilted to one side again, her brow furrowing slightly as she scrutinized him. "Why would you do that for me?"

Deciding that trying to convince her his motives were purely altruistic might be pushing it too far, Adam went with something relatively close to the truth. "Like I said, they held me prisoner for...longer than I care to remember. When they locked me up, they took something of mine, something I want back. You help me get what I want, I'll help you get what you want. Deal?"

She barely gave it a second's thought before making her decision; retrieving a lost personal item was a small favor to ask in return for a chance at being reunited with the love of her life. "Deal."

###

Adam's other ally, Maury Parkman, wasn't thrilled with the new addition to their team. "A vampire?! Are you serious? They're nothing but trouble-"

"Yes, I know; in my two hundred-odd years, I've come across a lot more of them than you," Adam said impatiently, "but this one's different. They don't actively prey on our kind - not usually, anyway; every species has its oddballs - and yet I've never met a vampire who wouldn't attack if you stumbled into their territory, except Bella. There I was, right in front of her...and nothing. We just had a perfectly civil conversation. I'm telling you, I can control her...at least until she finds out I lied about helping her commit suicide, but by then we won't need her anymore."

"And then she'll hunt us down for revenge," Maury complained.

"She didn't strike me as the vengeful type," Adam said with a dismissive shake of his head. "In any event, if she does become a problem later, we can always recruit someone capable of taking her out; whatever happens, I'll handle it. Now, are you with me or not?"

"Of course I am. You know I've always believed in your vision, Adam; I thought it was a crime the way Arthur Petrelli stole the Company out from under you, but there was nothing I could do. I was outvoted..."

"Well, it's easy to get the votes you need to stage a coup when everyone's afraid you'll take their powers if they say no, isn't it? Of course, we're still going to make them pay for putting me in Level Five... Now, let's get what we came for and get back before our new friend starts to wonder what we're up to, shall we?"

Bella hadn't been happy about being left behind while he and Maury carried out their errand - which he'd refused to give her any details of, since he doubted she would approve - though eventually she was forced to accept his excuse that taking her out in public was too risky, and the police station where Angela Petrelli was being held on suspicion of murdering Kaito Nakamura was very public. Luckily, the two men had no trouble getting in once Maury telepathically 'suggested' that the guards simply ignore them.

As he sauntered up to her holding cell, Adam couldn't help smirking at the sight of the woman who'd conspired with her husband and the rest of those spineless traitors to steal his freedom sitting behind bars. "Hello, Angela. I must say, bright orange isn't your best color."

He savored the hint of fear that flashed across her face before she hid it behind that cold, unflappable mask she wore so well. "Adam. So it was you who killed Kaito. I knew it; your little calling card wasn't exactly subtle, but then, you always did have a weakness for grandiosity. I assume it's my turn now."

"It's tempting - after the tragic death of your son, and now your old...friend..." He placed a delicate emphasis on the word, recalling the complicated history between her and Kaito, "...being murdered, I'm sure no one would be too surprised if you hanged yourself in your cell... Still, I have bigger fish to fry at the moment, so if you'll just tell me where I can find Dr. Pratt, I'll be on my way."

"Dr. Pratt? So you want to restart your old project, is that it? Well, you're too late; she's gone. Remember that vampire who developed a bizarre fixation with hunting us? He came back not long after we locked you up and took her."

"I didn't expect you to give up her whereabouts easily - that's why I brought someone you won't be able to lie to. Maury!" The blood drained from Angela's face as the telepath stepped into view. "Find out where Dr. Pratt is these days, will you? Of course, given dear Angela's talent for burying the truth, you'll probably have to dig around a bit. You did tell the guards not to notice if she screams, didn't you?"

###

Ten minutes later, Maury withdrew his telepathic probe from Angela's mind, leaving her huddled on the cell's tiny cot, shaking and clutching her head, and turned to Adam, scowling. "I'm sorry - it looks like she really was telling the truth for once. Pratt's gone."

Adam angrily slammed his hand against the bars. "Damn it!"

"It's not all bad news, though; Nakamura told everyone he destroyed all her work, but Angela always believed he kept a sample hidden somewhere."

"If he did, I doubt he would've felt comfortable keeping it in the same building with me. There's only one other facility where he could store something like that." His lips curled into a wolfish grin. "Looks like we're heading to Odessa."

Well, Adam's certainly a twisted bastard; the other founders did lock him up because of his plan to wipe out most of humanity with the Shanti virus - I'm not sure even Arthur would've been crazy enough to think that was a good idea - but in his mind that was just an excuse to steal the company he built from him and he'll do anything to get his revenge. I hope reading about his manipulation of Bella wasn't hurtful to anyone, and even though it seemed like the only plausible way for him to trick her into doing what the plot requires, I want to make it clear that I don't in any way condone his actions.

...And that's my last update for 2018. I wish you all the best as we head into the new year.