I got that drink after all.

Luckily, most of the currency throughout Europe was the same, so I used the last of my euros. Which meant that I was broke. On this side of the ocean, anyway. My college fund that I never got to tap into sat unused in the U.S. But that was something I didn't have access to. I never would, which meant that I had to do the most dreaded thing.

I had to get a job.

Currently, I was on the curb outside a bar in Switzerland, where Vladimir had taken me too. I had a theory that the older a vampire was, the faster they could run. For all Edward's talk of being the fastest, I really thought it was Carlisle. It was entirely plausible and oh-so-Carlisle to pretend to be slow just to make his son happy.

Anywho, that wasn't on my list of priorities. Mainly it served as blank thoughts while I stared at the pavement. White noise to drown out the thoughts of getting a job, how to use my new advantage over Victoria, and how I had unintentionally killed Vladimir.

Yeah. I didn't want to think.

What I wanted was another drink, but I was all out of money.

Only a little over four months ago, I was back with Edward and my fa- the Cullens. I'd finally repaired my relationship with dad and Jess (I refused to remember what had happened to her). My senior year was almost over. Well, now it definitely is and I missed my chance to graduate. I didn't think it mattered so much to me until I knew that I missed it.

I'm missing it all.

Leah, Seth, and Jake have probably resigned themselves to the fact that I'm gone. They're likely back on patrol, keeping on the lookout for any and all threats. The Cullens are going to tire of this goose chase soon, and Edward… Well, Edward probably thinks that this is my revenge and that I'm now the one to abandon him.

My hands gripped my head as if to shake the thoughts free from it. Thinking about these things was not good. Thinking about them, period, was something that I thought I'd promised to myself way back in the game.

I really needed to focus my mind elsewhere. Like the thoughts I didn't want to think.

Sighing, I picked myself up from the curb and dusted off my jeans. I gripped my near-empty bag and headed west. I didn't make it three feet before I stepped on a watered-down flyer. I bent down and picked it up, holding it in my hand and then my hand to the dim street light to see what it read.

It was printed in German, but I still got the message loud and clear. I looked at the bar, then back to the paper, where there was a photo that had been ruined by the rain. After a minute of comparing the two and confident that they were indeed the same building, I went back inside.

No longer a patron, I marched up to the bar, which had only grown more crowded in the few minutes I had been outside. It took a while for the bartender to get to me. A flash of recognition flashed across his face immediately. "What it be?" he asked in his German-accented English.

I held up the soggy flyer. "You're hiring?"

"Ja," he said, nodding his head in case I didn't get it.

"Where can I apply?"

He raised a bushy black eyebrow. After scanning my rain-soaked form, he threw his rag over his shoulder and laid his hands on the countertop. "Your name."

"Now? Uh- okay." I said, discombobulated. "Ann."

He lowered his head, giving me a look that said: your real name.

I tried my best not to scowl. "Marie."

This time, he believed me and nodded. He opened his mouth to ask the next question but frowned and pulled out a piece of paper that bore a suspiciously striking resemblance to a questionnaire. "Nationality."

I chuckled to myself. With his accent, the word sounded funny. Plus, I saw a lot of his teeth.

He rolled his eyes and began scribbling with his pen. "Obviously American." The bartender scanned the sheet, and as I leaned closer, I was surprised to see there were only a few more questions. Without looking up, he asked, "Criminal record?"

My mind flashed back to the time where Mike and I trashed the house belonging to the devil principal of Forks Junior High. That was a lot of fun. Charlie sure wasn't amused. Neither was Mrs. Newton.

Despite Charlie's anger, he got me off the hook. Anything about it was erased. I was only 14, after all.

Coming back to the present, I shook my head. The bartender eyed me skeptically before shrugging his shoulders and marking the box I guessed meant 'no'. Then he capped his pen, folded the piece of paper, and they disappeared into the cup and his pocket respectively.

"That's it?"

He nodded. Eyeing me again, this time his lip curling in distaste at my wardrobe, he said, "Job is yours if you… waschen."

There was never a course on German at Forks High. Or at any of the schools in Phoenix. Yet, his meaning was crystal clear. "When do I start? After I… 'waschen'?"

"Tomorrow if convenient for you. Will receive day-practice and begin night." A customer banged her fist against the counter, making him perk up. "I am Jonas. If you need me, will find me."

With that, he turned to the customer and quickly served her. I left the bar for the second time in fifteen minutes, surprised at how easily I had gotten the job. Maybe it was a trap. Perhaps Victoria found me and wanted me to walk right into this bar, knowing my weakness for my best friend, Jose.

But I again shook my head. It would be a blessing if Victoria found me. If only I knew how to control my murder-hands. I still had to figure out how to use it. I was less concerned with the how or why more than the holy-crap-this-shit-is-awesome.

I made my way back to the place where Vladimir had taken me, glad that it was somewhere abandoned that wasn't in the middle of the city. The barn was dark and practically falling apart, but luckily these things (along with sheds and stables) were everywhere. It seemed farmers overcompensated for their needs or they just simply ran low on usefulness. Anyways, that meant more practicing places for me.

There was still roughly 15 hours until my bartending days began, which meant that I had plenty of time to work on triggering my sparks. That was a cool name, but I wasn't even sure if there had been sparks or if it was all Vladimir. He was the one who I practically turned into particles of air.

With the vampire on my mind, I remembered our conversation. What was it he said about the Volturi? They killed his mate? No, that wasn't significant enough. Oh, yeah. He and… I forgot who else… wanted to take over the largest vampire coven in the world. The whole plan didn't concern me but I was worried what would happen if Vladimir's surviving friends actually went through with it and won. What would that mean for the humans, wolves, vampires, and me?

I was jolted back to reality by a stack of hay collapsing. The entire thing had caught on fire, which burned through it in a matter of seconds. Oddly enough, it didn't reach the walls of the barn. Well, it did, but the second it touched the wood, it fizzled out, as if someone had doused it with water.

My hands were warm. I looked down and was surprised to see the same pulses from the night before. It was pure energy, webs of lightning cracking underneath my skin, lighting up my veins, tendons, and blood vessels. I could see it all. The color was mesmerizing; it was as gold as the setting sun.

The energy in my hands spread down my arms, my torso, my neck, and my legs. Even the fading-red strands of my hair lit up like Rapunzel. Then, almost as if leaching the color from it, the energy became a second wave, this time a brilliant, bloody red, starting from my hair and following an inverted path back to my hands.

The light faded and with it, the energy. I suddenly felt drained. But nothing could knock me off the milestone that I just reached. I'd made a real and true discovery tonight. I was something different, something new, something that I had never heard of before. None of that mattered to me, though; all I could think about was the fact that I had never been human.

No significant event had turned me into this. James' bite would've turned me into another vampire. I simply never would've turned into a shifter. I've never even come into contact with a real werewolf, so there's no chance of that.

Whatever creature I am, I was born this way.

The big, burly weight of inferiority at once lifted from my shoulders. To know that I was never actually human, that I had always been supernatural, it was freeing.

But now, more than ever, the matter of what I actually was needed to be solved. Right now.

So, for the first time since I left the U.S., I pulled out my phone. As I held the power button, I prayed that it would be somewhat charged.

I waited a very agonizing thirty seconds before my lock screen flashed. Heaving a great sigh of relief, I checked the battery. 30%. Honestly, for not being charged for four months, that was impressive.

After setting the phone upside-down and checking the ringer was off, I sat on the rotted, wooden floorboards, and waited for the barrage of messages and missed calls to pass. I listened to the buzzing for minutes on end, wondering but promising myself not to check who they were from.

Finally, my phone fell silent. When I picked it up, I saw that the battery had dropped to 24%. All the more reason not to waste my time and get distracted by the notifications.

I navigated to the contacts app rather than the call log. The latter option would be much too tempting. As I clicked 'call' I was very glad the Cullens insisted on an international plan.

Considering it was the middle of the night, at least here in Switzerland, I was expecting no one to answer. Instead, it barely rang once before she picked up. "Bella?"

I sucked in a breath, shocked at how much I had missed her. We had already grown apart in the several months after Edward had left, but I think the fact that I hadn't seen her since she came down to convince me to go with her to Florida contributed to how I felt.

Releasing the breath, I said quietly, "Hi, mom."

It was as if those two words were all she needed and the torrent began. "Bella, honey, are you okay? Are you safe? Where are you? Phil and I can come there right now. Why did you-"

I quickly cut her off, worried she'd run out of air. "Mom," I said sternly. "Breathe." Once I heard her taking her deep breaths, I continued. "I'm fine. I'm safe. But I can't tell you anything else."

"What?" She sounded so confused and heartbroken. "What do you mean? Why can't you-"

"I need to know something."

"Oh."

"Was I-" I cut myself off, trying to figure out a way to put this. "Did I ever act… weird as a child?"

She huffed. "Bella, this is hardly the time to reminisce."

"Just answer the question."

"No." I could picture her expression of indignation. But then, "Well, maybe."

"What do you mean?"

There was a very deliberate pause on her end. Even now, she has a flair for the dramatic. "Sometimes, strange things would happen."

She was being vague. Clearly, she didn't want to tell me. I ground my teeth, forcing my tone to remain confused rather than agitated. "What strange things?"

"Things would go missing." My sigh of impatience was painfully obvious, and she at last answered my question. "Our lighters kept disappearing, no matter how many new ones I bought. Some of the dying plants went missing, too. You know me, I never could keep those things alive."

"Mom!"

"You're right," she said quickly. "Anyways, my plants would go missing. Along with blankets, old clothes, some pans. It all just vanished. I never saw any of it again."

As Renee spoke, a faint memory surfaced. It was me. Younger me, that is. I held a black lighter and I was in a clearing with a large potted plant. I flicked the lighter and lit the plant on fire. After I watched it for a few seconds, my little arm reached out and grabbed the blazing stem.

Younger me frowned and then wrapped the other hand around the stem. My frown deepened in concentration, and the stem snapped clean in half. The plant was still on fire but as soon as I broke the stem, the charred thing crumbled into pieces.

I couldn't have been more than five in the memory. Yet little me stared at my hands with confusion as I pulled them back, completely unharmed.

"Mom, did I ever burn myself? Ever?"

"What? You're asking odd questions, Bella." Sensing I was just going to ask her for an answer, she continued, "I- I don't think so."

Well, after this enlightening phone call, one thing was glaringly clear: my mother didn't know anything.

I was just about to hang up when I heard a knock through the receiver. "Phil!" Renee shouted. When the knocking persisted and Phil didn't answer the door, she shouted again, "Phil!"

Again, nothing. "Hang on, Bella. Someone's at the door. Probably my package."

I listened anxiously to the phone as Renee made her way to the door. A creak as she opened it. A gasp. "Who are you?"

The line went dead.

But not before I heard a scream.

16 - 7/15/22

Posted - 7/15/22