Chapter 5
Define 'hero'
Many years, centuries even have passed since Carlisle and I left Volterra. We've visited many other countries after that, and continued the routine that we had before we came to Italy. Carlisle kept studying medicine using books and was researching the ways he could get a degree and actually become a licensed doctor. His persistence in the medical field couldn't do anything but inspire me. He was a good man and wanted to spend his life helping humans, every single one of them.
I continued getting the Daily Prophet newspaper every day, the wizarding community was still at peace. Both Voldemort and Grindelwald haven't gotten their power yet. I knew I wouldn't be able to sit and wait for my time to come back to life if I read about unexplained muggle disappearances. I needed to do something about it, even if it meant living Carlisle to kill the pureblood fanatics myself.
I had a few ideas on how I'm going to execute my plan and apologize to Carlisle for leaving. I knew if I started killing people, Carlisle wouldn't be able to just step aside and not care about it. He would try to talk me out of it, and I was afraid he would succeed.
Jane's words about revenge were constantly in my head. I wouldn't be able to get rid of the one who killed Cedric, Lilly, and James. Voldemort was too important for history, and I knew Harry has to be the one to do it. Instead, I could kill those who don't matter to the wizarding world in the UK. The American wizards were killing muggles throughout 1920-1940s in Indianapolis, New York City, and Chicago for Grindelwald. I was sure this was the revenge I needed. In my History of Magic classes, we learned about the muggle genocide, the massacre of muggle kids and the elderly.
I didn't think about what happened after that, I wasn't sure what would happen if I killed the Death Eaters when they were still children, years before they became monsters. I didn't know how that would affect my timeline, my and my family's future. That was the 1950s Bella problem.
For now, I still had a few years until I would have to leave Carlisle and go on my own. The date was set in stone for me, February 14th, 1918, just days before the first muggle disappearances start happening. I would start my witch hunt on St. Valentine's Day, the day I could no longer celebrate because of the wizarding fascists. I called them that.
My plan required us to move to the United States, and I offered that to Carlisle a few decades after we left the Volturi. Indiana, New York, and Illinois were the states I talked about the most, trying to plant an idea in Carlisle's head about moving there. I wanted to explore the streets, find popular places local wizards liked to visit. I needed to know about every single corner of the three cities I chose.
Carlisle and I swam across the Pacific Ocean in 1858, the old man still didn't feel good after apparating, and I doubted I could even do such a big distance, not even mentioning the fact that I'd never personally seen the places we were going to. It took us a few days to swim the ocean, during which I decided I would have fun hunting sharks underwater. It was harder than I thought, even though I was still fast, my speed was not at the same level as it was above ground. The sharks also had fins and tales which helped them make sharp turns, I, on the other hand only had my feet and hands that were not very useful. I found it interesting that sharks weren't eager to attack me, usually, predators sensed a competition in me rather than a threat. Maybe, they were smarter than bears and lions that I've hunted before. I managed to get one after a few hours. Its blood tasted saltier than anything I've ever tried before and the blood from where I bit spread profusely in the water until all I could see was a red curtain covering my eyes from the rest of the ocean. Safe to say, I wouldn't repeat that experience.
Our first stop was New York, we swam up to a ship harbor somewhere in the Lower Bay area, next to Brighton Beach. When we swam closer to the shore, the whole area appeared to be farmlands, definitely not what I expected. In the future, I saw Brighton Beach in the movies my dad would rent out for Harry and me, it looked completely different, there were shops, hotels, a huge beautiful pier, and hundreds of people bathing in the sun, right now there was nothing.
We stayed in New York City for 7 years. Carlisle spent a few semesters in college learning modern medicine, after that he became Dr. Molson's apprentice for a few years and got a job at a local hospital as a general physician. Becoming a muggle doctor would take so much more than that in the future.
I was happy to see Carlisle working not only because he looked so ecstatic after his shifts, but also because he wouldn't know what exactly I was doing while he was gone. I would tell him I went to the bookstores or visited the New York wizarding community streets, but that wasn't exactly true. I did go to the bookstores, but I spent my time there listening to people exchanging news about strange things they saw in the area, like owls flying during the day or someone wearing a pointy hat in the middle of the street. I spied on people who walked out of the 'Wandweiser' rusty garbage-smelling pub in the outskirts of Manhattan, which had the same function as the Leaky Cauldron in London.
The next time we moved was in 1865, this time we traveled North-East and stayed in Maine, and although that wasn't the place I needed to visit, I still tried to enjoy it. I had a lot of time left to gather my information. I decided to cherish the times that I had as an animal blood-drinking vampire who can blend in and enrolled into Bates College, the first coeducational college in New England, to study the Russian language.
I developed a passion for languages since Carlisle and I first started learning French. I was a little upset when I found out that our professors weren't native Russian speakers, but they were still better at speaking it than I was. I spent four semesters in college, even though, I was able to speak, write and read in Russian after the first few weeks. Nevertheless, I graduated and got my graduation cap, which, to be honest, I always wanted. I felt like growing up in the wizarding world, but staying connected with a muggle one had its disadvantages. I was never supposed to graduate from high school or regular university, thus never getting the cap. It wouldn't matter for me if I didn't see actors and actresses playing in movies, they would walk on stage during the graduation ceremony, shake their headmaster's hand and throw their cap in the air. That cap was my American dream, in a way.
I kept the cap and added a few others to my collection every time we moved to another state and I would finish university again. Around the same time, I started betting money on the events that were going to happen. I never betted on something I didn't remember, so I never lost a penny. Another way of my contribution to my and Carlisle's financials was the stock market. I advised Carlisle what he should invest in and we started getting our first dividends within the next few years. I wouldn't call us rich, but we could now afford to buy property whenever we moved to a new place, so we didn't have to stay in the abandoned houses anymore.
Carlisle was my role model, a person who I wanted to be more like. He became my father figure, even though physically we were only 5 years apart. His wisdom and level of maturity definitely got him into an old man category for me. Carlisle would take me out to social gatherings more often since he was a doctor now, everyone knew me in the small towns we stayed in, so it made sense for me to change my name to Bella Cullen for legal reasons and to avoid confusion with college admission papers. Even with my name changed, I was still Swan-Black, I remembered my history and never thought about canceling my plans for revenge.
Carlisle and I moved a few times before we got to Indianapolis in 1905. I enrolled in college once again, only this time I skipped classes. It was important for me that Carlisle doesn't find out what I was doing. I once again searched the city for wizards but couldn't seem to find any. I was getting frustrated, people noticed me more because I was the handsome doctor's niece. How was I supposed to pretend to be in college as well as secretly gather information about the wizarding community of Indianapolis with so many muggles around me?
I found a way, just like I always had. Carlisle was working night shifts in the hospital, so I sneaked out of the house when the sun was coming down and searched the city in my animagi form. After a few nights, I was ready to give up, I seriously questioned my human memory, were there muggle attacks in Indiana, or was it somewhere else. I questioned myself until I heard whispers coming out of one of the deeper potholes. I looked around and saw a barely noticeable dimmed light shining from a basement window of the house. I came closer to the window and my tail wiggled a little. I found them, wizards and witches were drinking firewhisky in the underground bar. Judging by the number of people on the premises, I would have assumed everyone within a mile radius should have been able to hear them, they must have put the charms on their building. I sat at the window until people started to leave. It was getting very dark outside, so I would be able to follow some of them to their houses and listen to their conversations without anyone noticing. 'A giant wolf walking around Indianapolis', I wouldn't want that to be next morning's newspaper headline.
April 17th, 1911.
I was attending college, once again. We were staying in Columbus, Ohio at the time. I liked the early 1900s, they had more equality, I was able to get higher education in most states and find a job, although I doubted, I looked old enough for the latter.
This new college was the worst one I attended so far. It wasn't the professors or the subjects I was taking, it was the students. The women looked at me with envy, everyone left the table if I sat at it in the cafeteria, the boys were the worst though. This college had become coed very recently, and the boys who now had to share their school with females had a hard time keeping things in their pants. I was glad about being a vampire because people had an instinct telling them I was dangerous, so I avoided male comments about my body and what they would want to do to me. At the same time, I hated being a vampire because I had no one to talk to, I was forced to do all the group projects alone since no one wanted to be my partner and we had an odd number of students in my classes.
It was a strange feeling, being alone. I never felt like that until now. In the cafeteria, where I would sit during normal lunchtime and read a book, pretending to eat my food at the same time, I would hear people gossiping about me. Some said I was crazy, that the fire in which I lost my parents made me go insane and shut down inside. Some had other theories, in most of them I was presented as a bitch who didn't want to have friends.
I missed Hogwarts, people were nicer to each other there. No matter where you came from or what you looked like, you could always find a friend in Hogwarts. I wanted to talk to people my age, especially girls my age. I missed Hermione and little Ginny, I missed my roommates from Hogwarts, I even missed the devilish angel, Jane.
I tried starting conversations a few times with some girls from my class, but they quickly ended my efforts with a fearful look in their eyes and the words: "What do you need?"
What I needed was friends, friends that were not my father figure, friends that didn't reside in Italy on a permanent basis, friends that didn't live decades into the future. Maybe having no friends was for the best. Carlisle and I would have to move in a year or so, there was no need to develop connections that I wouldn't be able to keep.
"Hey," I said when I entered our new house. I heard the turning of the papers upstairs. Carlisle was home.
Our new house had two floors, with kitchen, living room and dining area on the first and two bedrooms with one bathroom connected to the rooms on the second. I liked the design of the house; it was cramped with furniture and bookshelves. Painted with subtle green paint inside and outside. I liked this green, it reminded me of His eyes, made me feel like He was watching me, protecting me from all the bad things.
I put my bag on the couch in the living room and went up the stairs. Each step shrieked as I stepped on it. I went down the hall and knocked on Carlisle's door.
"Come in."
"Hey, you didn't answer me," I said as I walked in.
Carlisle sat on the chair right next to his table, he had a book in his hand, but judging by the look he had in his eyes, he wasn't actually reading it.
"Sorry, Bella, I have a lot on my mind." Carlisle's smile looked false and forced when he looked up from his book.
"What happened?" I asked sitting down on the tip of his bed. I had never seen Carlisle like that.
"I've met someone."
A sad smile appeared on his face. He met someone? He meets someone every day, why such a big deal?
"Who is it?" I asked.
"No, Bella, you don't understand. I met someone, it's her, I felt it when she first looked at me."
Carlisle stood up from his chair and started walking around the room. He was upset, I would even say miserable. I understood what he meant; he met his soulmate. Why was he upset then? Maybe he thought I would be against it…I quickly got that idea out of my mind. No, he knew me better than that. I was trying to figure out why he was acting that way. It was great news, after all! He finally found someone he will spend eternity with! Unless…
"She's human, isn't she?" I whispered.
When Carlisle didn't say anything, I confirmed my suspicions. Crap, that was bad. I knew Carlisle well enough to understand that he wouldn't want to change her. I knew him well enough to understand that he would rather watch her fall in love with another man and die when she turns eighty than take her humanity. He just found his mate, and he just lost her too.
"Carlisle?" I said softly and stood up from the bed. I stopped his pace and hugged him tightly. "I am so sorry."
I felt him starting to sob quietly in my shoulder and held him tighter to myself. I tried holding my own feelings in as much as I could, but I just felt incredible pain for Carlisle, he had to let her go without getting to spend even one full day with her.
We stood like that for what felt like hours, Carlisle didn't want to let me go, and I didn't mind. He was there for me whenever I needed him, now it was my turn to be there for him.
"She is sixteen now," Carlisle spoke. "Esme Anne Platte, she came in this morning, broke a leg falling from a tree."
I couldn't say a word, I knew sometimes people just needed to say it out loud, talk about what they needed to talk about at that moment. I knew from a personal experience, that talking about someone you lost helps. I moved my hand up and down his spine softly.
"She didn't shed a tear, even when I was putting a cast on, just had her nose squinted. I thought at that moment that I would change her when she is older, more mature just to see her squint her nose like that. But I can't do that, I can't take her life away, she doesn't need that. She needs to go to college or find a human husband who will love her, needs to have kids who could squint their noses the same way she does, needs to grow old surrounded by her great-grandkids in a small house somewhere on the farm, where there lots of trees that she could look at and remember how she used to climb them when she was younger."
Carlisle imagined a whole life for Esme. A beautiful life, may I add, who wouldn't want to have a life like that? The only problem was Carlisle could never be a part of it. He will never grow old, will never have kids of his own, he will be forced to say goodbye to his Esme, crap, he might not even get to do that if she moves away.
"I'm here for you. You can always count on me, Carlisle." I said what he needed to hear and cursed myself for lying. I knew I wouldn't be able to keep this promise. I was the worst person ever.
February 14th, 1918.
Carlisle and I moved to Chicago a few days ago. Spanish influenza was killing people left and right. Carlisle was on call every single night. The virus was like nothing I'd ever seen before. Women, men, kids, elderly were overcrowding the hospitals, every shop closed down, people stayed in their homes and died in their homes. There was no one on the streets except for those who were transporting the sick into the hospitals and those who transported the dead out of it. The smell of bleach and burning flesh stank the whole city.
For the past few days, I tried helping families get information about their relatives in the hospital through Carlisle. I decided I could come back to Chicago in a few years, after the disease was gone, to search for the wizarding community. Now wasn't the time to terrorize the peaceful citizens even more.
Yesterday, after Carlisle left for work, I went into the wizarding world through an abandoned piano repair shop and got an owl. It was pure black with large orange eyes. Carlisle might need her.
When the clock on our wall rang midnight on February 14th, I grabbed my enchanted bag and my wand holster. I tore the first page of the nearest book and started writing.
'Dearest Carlisle,
I have to leave. Muggles are being killed as you are reading this letter. I can't let history repeat itself, this time regular humans will have a shield that can protect them against the fascists who murder them just because they don't have magical powers.
I am truly sorry about the way I'm leaving you. It has never been my intention to cause you harm, nor physical, nor emotional. You deserve to hear it from me personally, but I'm afraid if we were saying goodbye that way, you would find the words to stop me, and I don't want to be stopped.
I hope you find it in yourself to forgive me one day. You will always be in my heart and in my thoughts. I wish you all the best, my dearest friend Carlisle.
Yours always,
B.
P.S. the owl is Carly, if you need to reach me, she knows where I'll be.'
I didn't dare to cry, it was my choice to leave, I planned it out for a long time. I took everything I had with me, there was no need for Carlisle to figure out what to do with the things I left in the house. I checked to see that Carly still had my letter to Carlisle tied onto her leg and left the house.
As I walked down the empty dark streets, I imagined how devastated Carlisle would be when he finds the letter, when he realizes I left him. I caused him so much pain, broke a promise. I was indeed the worst person ever. I stopped myself from crying once again. This is for Cedric. I told myself and kept walking.
I walked until I got into the less inhabited part of the city and slid into a tight catwalk between the houses. I checked that there were no people around me and apparated.
March 31, 1923
I apparated back into my house. I was standing in the living room, not being able to move a muscle. I was mad, furious even. The things that I've seen, the things that I've heard. The fascists didn't know what came their way, I would kill every single one of them again for the things they were planning to do. They weren't only murdering the innocents, they were toying with them, torturing. I put a stop to that.
I looked at my desk to see the old newspapers that I still had on my dining room table.
"Recent killings in NYC are believed to be animal attacks. Police issue an emergency advisory to stay out of the forest areas. New York State to send wildlife control to NYC."
The first newspaper I laid my hands on. I was the animal who killed those people, of course, the newspapers will never know the reason behind it.
I slid my hand on the table, looking over other newspapers.
"NYC forensic believes the killer is a human. Witnesses argue with forensics, say they saw a black wolf wandering the city at night."
"The Grim: a natural-born killer. Witness says: 'I've seen it with my own eyes, I swear! It was a man in a dark cloak. God save us all.'"
I smirked at that one, they even gave me a name. People were smart, I could give them that, although their imagination spiked when they felt fear. I was already called a giant hairy man, a werewolf, a bad omen that made people die of fear as they saw me, a bad omen that made people scratch their own eyes out in horror, a tiny psychotic girl. The last one wasn't a popular opinion, but I wondered what else they were going to come up with.
The wizarding newspapers were not better. The New York Ghost also called me a werewolf a few times, but I was always believed to be a male. Some of their articles actually made me into a somewhat hero who was fighting for muggle justice. I guessed history will decide if I'm a villain or a hero. I preferred to be recognized as a real villain than a false hero, some people believed me to be.
Most of the editors, however, depicted me as a villain:
"During these horrible events, I ask everyone to pray for the lives that we lost. This serial killer, the Grim, is just a human being, like all of us. He is not a bad omen, he is not a wolf, he is just a sick person. The muggle police, as well as Aurors from across the United States, are doing what they can, but we ask those who live in a muggle world to stay inside their houses after sundown and not to go out alone."
The last one was from earlier today: "The Grim killed his 25's victim yesterday night. Police posted a $500 reward for the Grim."
Too bad no one would be able to get that money. I was moving, my job here was done. Wizards who I didn't get a chance to identify as fascists were too scared to do anything now, at least I hoped they were.
I put the newspapers into the fireplace and started the fire. I looked over my hands and noticed some dried blood on my palms. It was raining tonight, I hoped all the blood will be washed away as I walked from the city and into the forest, but obviously, that's not what happened. I looked at my clock and decided I still had some time, so I went outside and ran to a miniature lake nearby.
After I washed off my hair and my skin, I ran around for a few minutes letting my hair and clothes dry out in the air. After looking all over myself and being somewhat satisfied with the cleanliness of my clothes, I ran back to my house and started packing.
My charmed bag was significantly less occupied now. I was going through clothes like crazy, blood was a hard thing to wash off, and I hunted every day. One thing I noticed was that even though I killed those wizards in my wolf form, my hunger went down, and my eyes became red. I didn't remember tasting the human blood, I never hunted humans as Bella, only as a wolf and somehow, I still had my regular self-control around people.
I heard the flapping of the wings downstairs and ran to check for a new letter from Carlisle. He wrote me every other month, I never replied, but I liked how he kept me up to date with his affairs. I knew he lived in Tennessee now and had two new vampires under his wing. Edward Masen, Carlisle saved the poor boy from dying the same day I left. Carlisle told me about him in his letters, he appeared to have the same gift as Aro but could use it without the need to touch someone and only heard the thoughts that people had at the time. About two years ago he also found Esme again, which I was happy about. She tried to kill herself after the loss of her baby, but Carlisle heard her heartbeat in the morgue and changed her while there was still time. They were together now, happily wedded. He wrote me that Esme was even kinder and more loving than he ever imagined, and was treating Edward like he was her own son. Carlisle would always finish his letter by telling me he is worried about me and asking me when I was coming back.
Many times, I had an urge to write back to Carlisle, to tell him I was happy for him and that he doesn't have to worry about me, but I stopped myself. What good would that do? I knew he wouldn't stop worrying about me no matter what I wrote.
I threw the letter into the fire after reading it and gave the owl some food.
"You can fly back now, Carly," I told her and she looked deep into my eyes before flying away through an open window.
November 20th, 1928.
"The Grim killer strikes again, now in Indianapolis."
The same newspapers, the same headlines. I was getting bored, the wizarding community seemed to figure out which wizards I was tracking down specifically, so those ones stayed low. At least the Grim was still a male in their eyes, so I could listen in on wizards who were gathering in the pubs. After a few weeks, even that became impossible, the pub shut down, there was no way for me to track my victims to their homes, so I was forced to travel in shadows around the city, trying to hear anything.
I decided I was done with Indianapolis after months of not finding anyone who deserved to die, even rapists and domestic abusers were laying low. The crime rates went down significantly, I was once again hunting animals in the woods, waiting to see if someone will think I was finally gone and start doing what they were doing before I came. That didn't happen, people were too scared, especially after reading the newspapers, who still didn't have any information about The Grim and what he looked like.
My next and final stop was Chicago.
I think some of you might guess what happens in the next chapter...
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