THE HUMAN CONDITION
Chapter XVII: Oblivion
"In their images they had thought to find some
small immortality but oblivion cannot be appeased."
― Cormac McCarthy, The Crossing
Race. Life's a race.
And I am gonna win.
Yes, I am gonna win.
"I still have so many questions. I don't fucking understand any of this. It's surreal to think I went from being a normal teenage girl to this—this, I don't know. It's supernatural, I guess… on the bright side I don't have fur sprouting out of my skin."
"Hey! I resent that, Lis."
"Of course you so, wolfman."
And I'll light the fuse,
and I'll never lose;
and I choose to survive.
Whatever it takes.
"How did I fall asleep with him still tricking me?"
"We don't know. It's impossible to have that much power to penetrate mental shields that go up during sleep. Dreams are sacred places. Even the most insanely powerful of us cannot go there. Humans themselves are incredibly well-protected; that's the beauty of minds. From the minute they begin to construct themselves they grow attached to the brains and bodies that they encompass. Dakota somehow surpassed your barriers."
"I wish I could remember what happened. But it's like a dark spot for any of the time before he killed me in my dream. I know I was in a dream, I know that much. I know that feeling."
"There's two options for what could have happened, circumstances I've only ever heard about but never imagined possible. He could have paralyzed you in real life for whatever stimulation he put you through beforehand and that could have potentially triggered a temporary comatose state."
"Okay… What about the second?"
"…"
"Just say it. We don't have all the time in the world."
"It may have not been a dream at all and was a stimulation of your own conjuring."
"What exactly does that mean?"
"Critical moments of anger, they cause us—as quick to trigger as we are—to fight for control in the situation. We seek to flee."
"I really don't understand anything you're saying."
"Instead of containing you in an offset of his own mental… maybe you sucked him into one of your own."
"Wha—that's fucking impossible. I'm not capable of that."
"Dakota's stimulated constructs are not fool-proof. If we become too overwhelmed, we can paralyze ourselves and our mental shields go up unwillingly—therefore taking us out of the stimulation and putting us back into reality. If his projection of reality begins to feel too much like a reality, we will begin to think critically like we would if it were actual reality—not anything like the confused, irrational approach he craves from us—and that would render us lucid participants. And most dangerous of all, provoking a participant may put cracks into the illusion and instead of knocking both him and his victim back into reality, it will give control back to the participant. A stimulation that feels much like a dream, as the victim is no longer completely powerless."
"That makes no sense, Dad; it's a stimulation that he made. How the hell can someone that isn't him take control of it?"
"Someone perfectly normal perhaps couldn't. But we aren't completely human, Alissa. If anyone knows Dakota best, it is those he is an ascendance from—
"Before a thirst for power corrupted him, Dakota was one of us."
You won't pull ahead;
I'll keep up the pace.
And I'll reveal my strength
to the whole human race.
"I saw Granddad in one of Dakota's memories. He killed him, didn't he?"
"My father was fascinated with what makes someone human and what makes someone a monster. He filled his journal to sate his obsession. Pages of art detailing vampiric physiques, descriptions of every illusion Dakota ever cast upon him, heavy research done in regards to what makes someone supposedly without a conscience. It was utter madness. By his end I felt as though he himself was mad."
'He wrote a poem. I think he saw something different in Dakota. I think he knew what I know."
"He saw mortality in Dakota. He saw the life that came before eternity. It is all implied in his entries—an obsession that led him witlessly to his demise."
"You told me he killed himself. I remember that much. Why'd you lie?"
"What you don't know won't hurt you."
Yes, I am prepared
to stay alive.
"So I have some of Dakota's memories… because his mental barriers broke down?"
"It's something I've never encountered, but yes. It's the only explanation. We don't know the actual details of your time with him, but I can only assume he was incredibly emotional and during his state, he touched you. How did he kill you, Alissa?"
"He put his hands around my skull and crushed it. I may have been unconscious, but I still felt it. It's like the dream itself was an illusion."
"Listen, Alissa. You caused his own illusion to fail, and you wound up asleep or in an illusion of your own creation. Whatever the case, he was able to make you feel pain because you gave him that power."
"What exactly are you saying?"
"You think he's a dangerous, untouchable monster. Invincible and without weaknesses. Whatever idea is in your head of him, it matches our current enemy."
"Uh, I'm not following."
"You gave him back his abilities the minute you decided to stay afraid of him, even in conscience."
(You were warned and didn't listen).
"I still don't understand why I felt his emotions in his memories. I thought I was just supposed to be watching from his point of view, not hearing his thoughts and feeling his feelings too."
"To my understanding, you stripped from him pieces of his conscience. And perhaps these memories were ones he wanted to forget. You saw memories from his time as a human and vampire, right?"
"Yes. But… I thought he didn't feel."
"It's foolish of you to think that. He was a man. He had a family. Even now he's compensating for that lack of love and affection in his eternity by fostering power."
"He's a monster, though. I mean, psychopaths and sociopaths don't feel, right? How's Dakota any different?"
"Alissa, you have to understand. Dakota's misguided. He was like a child when he met the Volturi: disposable and easily manipulated. I can't be for certain about anything, but if you ask me, I think they brainwashed him. That could explain why he isn't entirely void of emotions."
"His thoughts and feelings didn't feel like they were in sync."
"It's a common effect from being programmed to think a different way from what you grew up believing. Dakota's a recruiter and advisor for the Volturi. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say the Volturi liked him because of his powers. They thought he'd be an asset. And when they heard that he came from an entire line of people just like him… well, it explains why we've been harassed by the bastard for over a century."
"We won't know what he's thinking when he meets Roman again."
"How did he feel when he was with Roman?"
"Well… his feelings and thoughts didn't make sense together, like I said. He was thinking about power and thinking he needed to be 'free' from Roman, but he felt guilty and from how sad—I think it was sad—he was, I could tell he didn't actually want to fully leave him. At times… there was an emptiness, but it was him just putting a void in the places he felt the most. I think. He wanted to not care, but there was a lot of struggling involved. I think… he was just searching for greater purpose. And he thought he couldn't get that from Roman."
I won't forgive;
vengeance is mine.
"Dakota, when he talked about his emissary powers, he mentioned being different from us. He said he could feel auras and see where the future took people. What do people from our family line normally get for powers?"
"Dakota was a rare commodity. You and I are replicas of our ancestry, luckily. Dakota would be hazardously more determined in you or I joining the Volturi if we were different, like him. The only power he had that made sense with his genes was being able to communicate with the dead. Even that was limited. Dakota has always been rogue when it comes to celebrating his history; maybe it wasn't explored in the memories you got, but Dakota hates wolves. He hates our traditions and our culture. Again, just guesswork here, but I personally think he hates wolves because of jealousy. Maybe he couldn't stand feeling powerless because he had a gene that made him an omega as opposed to an alpha."
"Yeah… I guess he'd hate Sam then."
"…"
"…"
"…We aren't protectors."
"Then what are we? What do we do?"
"…"
"Well?"
"We're shields."
And I won't give in
because I choose to thrive.
"Why won't you tell me completely about what we do? I know that we can talk to spirits and do, like, offense and defense stuff with them but that's it. Well, and make wolves shift… but I don't want to think of that as an ability. What—what are you hiding?"
"I'm not hiding anything. I don't think you're ready to train. Of course, our ancestors think differently; the guardians even more so. They think you're ready."
"I'm at the forefront of this war, Dad. I think that qualifies me for at least a little bit of trust."
"I know, I know… Whatever is in store for us, it requires fighters at their best. You aren't at your best. You remind me of your grandfather."
"I thought you said he went insane."
"I did."
"…"
"I feel like if we keep going on the way we are, you'll fall down the same path."
"I'm… I'm not obsessed with him. Jesus. He's a monster, and he's trying to turn us, and if he doesn't get us to turn he'll kill us. I have to be worried and learn about him if I don't want to die."
"You've got your answers. Isn't that enough?"
"It won't be enough until you trust me. Until I know what I am. Until you stop thinking I'm a ticking time-bomb."
"…"
"Of course that's what you think. Well, newsflash: I know his weakness. I'm the one who got you to call Roman. I am why we know more than you guys ever found out in decades. If he falls, it's all thanks to him targeting me. If you just let me—"
"Alissa, you're a child. You've got all the answers you need. I forbid you from training until after Dakota is dead."
"…"
"…"
"Okay. Alright. No training. But I'm not going to sit here and just watch. We all know he's the stronger one. He won't give up without a fight and we all know you and me are the ones he wants. If Roman is… a "vegetarian vampire" now like you said, he'll have some words to say about Dakota being a monster."
"I think you're right, Alissa. But you know as well as I do that Roman won't want the same fate for him."
"We'll see about that."
Yeah, I'm gonna win.
"SO THIS ROMAN, he's a fucking magician?" asked Paul incredulously as we trekked through a La Push High corridor, Jared and Kim trailing behind us.
It had taken lots and lots of convincing before Dad (begrudgingly) agreed to contact Roman. Roman had given my grandpa a contact card for his traveling business when he came down for permission to do a show in Forks during Dad's childhood, and when Dad had searched for a link to the business online, it—sure enough—had popped up. He came to my room to tell me he'd found Roman's number, thinking I was the first who deserved to know. I mean, I was the one who'd begged him to call. As Dad went to the kitchen, I tiptoed to Jared's room and woke him up from his nap. He was more than eager to eavesdrop with me on Dad's conversation. Not so much for crouching at the doorway of the kitchen.
From the conversation, we gathered that Roman was in Seattle doing a gig for a kid's birthday party. Jared, the only one of the two of us who could hear both tails of the conversation, was unsure himself on whether Roman had plans on coming to assist us.
Roman was very cryptic. He had the decency to inform Dad that he knew of Dakota's past and current transgressions and wasn't in agreement with them; he was "vegetarian" now apparently.
For the past week, we'd all struggled to feel "normal" knowing what we knew. Kallie had been completely flabbergasted when she learned that Jared and I were talking again and I was in an actual touch-touch-my-crush-crush relationship. I hadn't gotten a chance to talk about much of anything with her throughout Dakota's reign in my mind. She thought I was "off"—her words, not mine—as a person and as a friend. I wasn't loud or talkative enough to be her last-known version of Alissa. She told me she was concerned, but I just brushed it off, telling her I was fine, totally fine. She thought I was a liar with her pants on fire.
It felt less stressful being with Jared and Paul; they weren't in the dark about anything that had transpired over the last week. I liked them enough that I had no qualms in hanging out with them and being a part of their friendship again. Sort of. I continued to wonder what imprints were and I badly wanted to just bite the bullet and ask someone in the pack what the fuck they were. Things kept coming up and the question kept slipping my mind.
Our rekindled "friendship" had another issue. Wherever Jared went, Kim, oh-so-lovely Kim, came too. I thought Kim was a little too shy and quiet. I knew from her friend Miranda, who loved to gossip about anything and everything if it meant attention, that she'd had an obsession—a fucking fanatical, stalkerish obsession—with Jared before they'd started dating. Talk about a whole bowl of crazy soup and boy was Jared slurping it up.
Embry Call, the elusive man of Kallie's dreams, was still an enigma to me. He was just as quiet as Kim, but he had his moments of being funny and likable. He'd asked me about Kallie once or twice. From his inquiring I gathered that the looks he'd given her up on that beach cliff weren't fabricated. He was absent from school today so he could help Sam patrol in light of Dad's phone call to Roman. We were all anticipating a final act of war from Dakota.
Ahem, back to the present.
From Paul's tone, it was easy to tell he thought the idea of a vampire magician was incomprehensible. A fucking joke.
"Yeah, apparently," I said to Paul. I took a glance back at Jared and Kim to see them extraordinarily close, shoulder to shoulder, laughing at something unknown to the rest of the world. I fought back a grimace, looking back to my impatient, chocolate-eyed wolfman. "He has a traveling show. Started it up in 1906, according to Google."
"That's pretty normal," said Paul, "for a leech."
I rolled my eyes. "Did you forget about the part where Dad said he uses 'cognitive manipulations,' whatever that means, in his shows?"
"Oh, right." Paul dropped his arm around my shoulders, crushing me deep into his side. I struggled to walk with his heavy-ass arm weighing me into the floor, but just for him I bit my tongue and didn't complain. We hadn't had much of a chance to be lovey-dovey, given recent events. We were nothing like Kim and Jared, who couldn't go a moment without staring into one another's eyes, but we had our moments. We were more of a "let's make out and laugh about stupid shit" couple. "Why's he so important anyway?"
I'd been pretty vague with Paul and Jared regarding Dakota's memories. It was weird to tell either of them the explicit details. I mean, that's gross to think about. Vampire sex. Sex with a vampire.
If you and Paul ever have sex, that's sex with a dog. So…
Ergh, fuck off, brain.
"Well, maybe him and Dakota were in love," I said innocently, knowing deep inside my mind it wasn't really love. It was lust and pleasure, sure, but neither of those equated love. "I'm sure there's some part of Dakota that… ugh, I don't know the word. Wait—cares. Cares for him."
"Not sure I believe that," Paul said, giving me a dubious side-eye. At least it wasn't his signature "burning you alive with laser eyes" glare; he didn't give it often, but when he did, it could send chills down a fucking wildebeest's spine. "He's a fucking leech."
"Well, yeah, but—" Paul stopped me there by the interruption of his hand. Warm, calloused skin invasively pressed against my mouth.
You could have just told me to be quiet, asshat. I shot daggers down at where open air to breathe should have been.
"He doesn't have a heart," Paul said slowly. After he touched me, both of us had to come to a complete stop. Jared and Kim went around us but stopped feet away. They obviously didn't want to continue on to the cafeteria without our accompaniment. Or maybe they just liked watching us bicker. "I'm not being prejudiced, Lis, just speaking the truth. How can you feel if you don't have a fucking heart?"
I licked his hand, feeling gutsy, and the disgusted look on his face when he pulled away was satisfying enough that I didn't even let my ire for being touched on the mouth manifest. "I dunno, Paul—maybe emotions?" I said. His lip curled, still rubbing his saliva-enclosed hand off on his pants leg. "Morals and feelings come from the brain…and his brain's still workin', last time I heard."
"Yeah, but wouldn't they work differently than a human's?" Paul asked, looking expectant, as if eager for me to give him an answer that would satisfy his own observations.
I shook my head. "I don't know. Maybe. Maybe they're enhanced. His feelings in his memories were a lot more crazy and intense than mine are after he was turned, and I'm alive."
Paul absorbed this silently, his face giving him away for being as irritated as I was when he put his hand on my mouth.
His lack of words would have been eerie if we weren't in the middle of an overpopulated, cramped corridor.
"I still think this is all bullshit," he grumbled after a while of us staring, relenting to my tug so the four of us could start walking again.
I bit down on my lip. An enormous wave of guilt washed over me. Anyone with a brain could tell he was mad. "When Roman gets here, it won't just be up to us anymore," I assured him, squeezing his hand. He looked down at it, almost contemplative. "Dad said so."
"Well, we all know how promises work out with your Dad," Paul said bitterly.
I couldn't argue with him on that.
A question plagued me as we arrived at the cafeteria line. It even shadowed me to their usual lunch hotspot, my mouth and breath following a familiar paralytic sensation that overcame my entire body. It was so encapsulating that I didn't notice the weird looks I was getting from everyone who thought I still hated my brother.
Can I trust my own father?
Trust was a one-syllable, five-letter word that sometimes slipped my mind.
Like now, for instance.
"Roman's coming tomorrow," my father informed me over the phone.
It was three o'clock, and most people were out of the school building by now, heading home through car, bus, bike, or foot. Paul had patrol immediately after school and Jared asked Kim out to the movies. Both were concerned about my wellbeing, requesting me to come with one or the other to avoid being alone, but I promised I'd be with Kallie. Truth was, I hadn't seen Kallie since Art but I was determined to have a word with her before day turned to night. I'd been heading out to the parking lot for an impromptu intervention when I'd gotten an unexpected phone call from Dad. Shockingly—or maybe shockingly not—I didn't feel uneased when I looked at the caller ID.
Now, I was standing frozen on the steps leading up to the school, my heart launched up into my throat. Not by the caller—by his words.
I couldn't let him know that Jared and I had eavesdropped on his call with Roman. I said, "Oh. Did he call?"
"We talked briefly before," Dad said vaguely, leaving me to piece together my own theories on his first chat with Roman. I knew the basics, but even Jared had forgotten all the little tidbits by the time we snuck back into his room. I wanted to know everything I could at this point; maybe it'd be useful when we faced Dakota again. "He called this time. He'll be in Forks by tomorrow morning. I told him we'll let him over the treaty line for the duration of time it takes to sniff Dakota out and exterminate him."
I got over my paralyzed spell. I hopped down the next few steps, kicking a stray pebble in my path when I reached the concrete below. The parking lot felt deserted. It felt familiar, and with a lurch in my gut, I realized it was because it reminded me of Taha Aki's visit in Pic-Pac's sad little parking lot.
Fuuuuuck.
"I'm not sure your solution will work, but for your sake and mine, I hope it does," Dad finalized after I stayed silent perhaps a little too long.
"I guarantee Roman will have an effect," I said, pulling out Dad's car keys from the side pocket on my backpack. "I told you, Dakota's not as impassive as he tries making us think. He feels. You and Paul are one in the same, thinking he's a sociopath or something."
"He's killed multiple people, Alissa. He's went on murderous rampages, killing as many as ten at a time. Someone who 'feels' wouldn't just take that many cold bodies with a grain of salt," was Dad's exasperated-sounding response. I couldn't say a word before he finished off with, "And if you remember, you were the one who asked me if Dakota was any different from psychopaths and sociopaths."
He was right. I shook my head, omitting my own hypocrisy from mind and muttering into the screen, "You can murder and still feel bad about it—"
"Listen," Dad said in a harsh, snappy tone. I quickly shut my trap. "I called to tell you that Roman will be here tomorrow and we'll need to call you in for a family emergency. I need you to pick up your work before you come home. Lord knows you're behind enough as it is."
I had missed so much school in the past month from near-death experiences, it was becoming routine to have my teachers ask me if I was okay every time I showed up in class. I even had Mrs. Jones questioning my wellbeing. If that wasn't alarming, I surely needed a healthy dose of brain-picking to see if I'd had my memories wiped.
"Okay, yeah," I said, exempting that I would not, in any size, shape, or form, be going around to my regular classrooms and getting additional work to add onto my already-fairly-high stack of undone work that awaited me at home. My teachers would sympathize with me. They were under the impression that a bear attacked me and that I had a concussion from falling off my bed; the work I had due wasn't due until the end of March because they were all worried my next accident would end with me comatose in Forks Community Hospital. "I'll do that after you get off."
School was the least of my priorities.
A cough came from his side of the call. "Yeah, I didn't think you would," he said, surprising me. Shit, he knows me better than I know me. "Get home as soon as you can."
"Alrighty," I said. I ignored how badly I wanted to lie and yap on about being a law-abiding student.
"See you in a bit. Love you."
"Yeah, love you too," I replied.
He hung up before I had a chance to.
After I snapped my phone shut, the silence came in for the kill.
Everyone was either home or in some classroom or another. No sports games to attend, no sponsored events—just tutoring sessions in the library and regularly-scheduled detentions. None of which I was invited to or obliged to attend.
It felt strange, standing surrounded by silence. After so long being tailed by friends and family, I'd grown used to always having someone by my side, a two-sided conversation underway. Ever since I'd woken up from my dream death, I hadn't been left alone. Everyone was worried about me and my headspace. They knew that suffocating me wouldn't help if Dakota decided to pay my head another visit, but it felt reassuring to them if I was always in eyesight.
It was surprising that no one was around. In that moment, I was alone.
I hightailed it over to my Dad's car when it came into my peripheral, unwilling to just stand there like an unsociable idiot any longer. Truly I just didn't want to let my feelings and thoughts creep up and swamp me.
Dad lent me the car this morning after I complained about being in the same vehicle as Jared and Kim. I had to drive him up to the Archives as payment. Afterwards, I went and picked up Paul from his house; I didn't even comment when he came out topless with a bundled-up shirt in his hand, like he'd just rolled out of bed. The two of us were late getting to school because of him wanting to make out in the driveway of his house, but hey, I didn't complain. I broke it off as soon as my face went bright red from being unable to breathe.
I was both thankful and saddened I wouldn't get that same experience now. Damned Sam and his patrols.
I got in my car and drove to Kallie's house, remembering the path like a developing baby would its mother's voice.
The lights weren't off when I got there, keying me in that Kallie was home—but the lack of a vehicle in the drive also said that her parents weren't. They probably left her brother in charge.
I turned off the ignition and left the key in its slot, thinking it'd be easier for both parties if I got Kallie to come out and have a chat with me in open, frigid air.
I ignored her two dogs staring curiously at me from the grass when I walked up and rang the doorbell.
1 Mississippi… 2 Mississippi… 3 Mississippi… 4 Mississippi…
It was Kallie's college-age brother Brandon who cracked open the door.
"Oh hey, Alissa," he greeted, beaming down at me with a strange set of hazel eyes that gleamed and twinkled. He was the "pretty one" in the family, according to Kallie; they always yapped on and on about how he could be a model with how conventionally attractive he was. Decent height, floppy brown hair, symmetrical face, cute smile. His skin was a lot lighter than the rest of us, hinting that he got more from his Dad—who was barely a tenth Native—in the genetics department. Kallie resented him for it. "What're you doing around these parts?"
"Not in for a visit with you," I returned drily, peering around his frame in an attempt to get a peek of the inside. It failed when Brandon shifted fully into my view. "Ugh, come on, Brandon. I gotta see Kallie. Tell her I bring Embry-related news."
Brandon knew about Kallie's crush on Embry from a chat he eavesdropped on months back. He's held it over her head ever since.
Brandon smiled, a dimple appearing on his left cheek. "Thought we had something, Lis," he said. "You're breaking my heart here."
I scowled. Only Paul gets to use that stupid nickname. "Shut up, Brandon. Get Kal for me."
Brandon's smile never wavered as he turned his head and yelled, "Hey, Kallie! Alissa's here at the door for you!"
A silence awaited Brandon's call. A silence that made me wonder if Kallie was upset with me over how I'd acted lately.
Brandon turned back to me when Kallie failed to return his call. "Huh," he said, quirking an eyebrow. "That's funny. I thought you guys were best friends."
"We are," I said brusquely. "I mean, we are. She's just… We're going through a friendship crisis right now. Here, just let me—"
I stopped when I noticed he wasn't even looking at me. His eyes were over my head, on something I couldn't see.
"Brandon… what—"
Brandon's arm suddenly shot out and heaved me forward.
"Ow!—what the fuck, Brandon—"
"Shh. There's someone in the trees," Brandon said to me quietly. The world spun as he pulled me through the door, shutting it behind us. He released me quickly afterward. "I don't know who it is. He didn't look familiar."
I shoved him away from me, not amused in the slightest. "Oh, fuck off, Brandon," I said, not dumb enough to fall for his tricks. I was sure Kallie was hiding near the staircase somewhere, giggling at her brother and his failed acting career. "Now where's Kallie?"
Brandon shook his head, turning his back to me. He crept quietly up to the window beside the front door, using a pointer finger and his thumb to crack open a blind. He quickly pulled back. "He's still there," he whispered.
I knew my face betrayed how unimpressed I was on the inside. But there was that part of me wondering if I was underreacting. "Oh really? What's he look like?"
"He's real pale, and he's got these fangs, and he kinda looks like he's smirking," Brandon stammered, peering back toward the window. His gaze pinballed between me, the floor, the door, and the window. He looked genuinely freaked out. "Dark, dark hair. He looks like someone from the reserve, but I don't recognize him…"
"Okay, Brandon," I said, drawing out the "o." "We get it. You're the next Michael Caine. Congrats."
But even I was getting a little worried. Pale. Fangs. Smirk. Hair. Had a vampire followed me here? Was it Dakota?
I had no time for his games, if so. I wasn't with anyone who could protect me. Just Brandon and his stupid hair. Just Kallie and her noodle arms.
Brandon's shoulders sagged, his petrified act never wavering. I rolled my shoulders and went around him. I barely left an inch of space.
If I were perfectly honest with Brandon, my heart was beating out of its cage and my brain was going hysteric from paranoia. I mean, vampires! Vampires! Again!
Vampires freaking suck.
"It's been a freakin' week," I muttered under my breath. Images, video loops, ran rapidly through my mind. Right behind my eyelids. Of Dakota. Of his sexual exploit with Roman. Of him turning me into a brain slushy. I braced myself for what I'd see when I popped open a blind.
As I repeated Brandon's process with my pointer finger and my thumb, a blind went upward and the outside appeared through the pane. All I saw within the trees was pine, bark, and muck. Nothing that hinted at a vampire being in our midst.
You're not safe.
Regardless I let out the breath I'd braced.
"Cool prank, thanks," I said, not meaning my words. I moved my head a few inches to look over at Brandon. He didn't look apologetic or anything, not what I'd been anticipating when I turned around. I'd expected something to suggest that this had been a prank to defend his sister's honor.
Brandon looked pale. His fear was still evident. I wasn't good at telling whether emotions were real or fake on a person so I could only deduce that the lack of relief meant they were real.
Double fuck.
"Uh, you know where Kallie's room is," Brandon said awkwardly, not looking at me. He pushed back a flop of fallen hair from his forehead. "I guess I was imagining it."
I didn't feel very assured by his words. He was just as clueless as me, and he was the one who'd seen someone in the trees. If he saw something, why was he backing down now?
Dakota's inhumanely fast. Him disappearing isn't illogical.
Brandon didn't know about vampires and shapeshifters. If he did, I was sure he would have been more freaked out than he already was. He looked unsettled, yeah, but nothing compared to the full-blown panic attack I was on the verge of.
I was the one underreacting. This was serious.
"Lock the other doors. I got this one," I said, flickering my gaze down on the flimsy golden doorknob.
Brandon just stood and stared at me. I nudged my head toward the kitchen area, where I knew an additional door was situated. There were three doors in the house.
Come on, Brandon. Just do what I'm telling you. Don't ask questions.
Was he thinking he was imagining things? Did he think I was overreacting? Seriously? If I, someone who could only take his word for it, was certifying this as a real, frightening problem… what was stopping him from feeling the same?
Maybe he was frozen in fear and confusion. I remembered being this clueless once.
I snapped.
"Fucking do it, Brandon! This is serious!" I barked, pushing him in the chest. I went around him and pulled the lock on the front door, locking the key in place too. Brandon finally seemed to grow a brain, his feet back-peddling. He left to do what I told him to and I quickly took another look through the blinds. There was still nothing to be seen but unsuspecting nature.
Triple fuck.
"Fuck," I whispered aloud, wanting to bang my head into the wall until I forgot my own damn name. Anything was better than watching Dakota's return. His debut was enough of a deal-breaker for me.
There were only two illusions I remembered and both didn't feel very good. I didn't want a follow-up.
I heard an additional pair of footsteps that sounded nothing like the loud stomps coming from Brandon's trapezing through the house. They were soft, but emitted enough sound that I knew there was someone behind me. Pitter-pattering steps that had to belong to Kallie.
I whipped around, catching her just as she got to the bottom of the stairs.
Her eyes were on mine, mine on hers. We silently observed each other. I didn't stay silent for very long, kind of wishing she wasn't here. There was nothing keeping Dakota from killing my best friend and her brother.
"Kallie!" I blurted out, knowing my emotions were expressed very potently on my face. Kal was dressed in a navy camisole and gray gym shorts, feet clad in mix-matched socks. She had her pin-straight brown hair piled up into a bun. Her eyes followed me to her brother as he came running through the entrance room to get to the door at the back of the house. I knew she wasn't ecstatic to see me, but fuck. The look on her face made me think I was an enemy and I knew our history enough to know that wasn't true.
"What are you doing here?" Kallie asked. Her gaze drifted from me to her brother as he came skirting back into the room, bent over and catching his breath. "Why's Brandon running all over the place? What did you do to him?"
"Listen, you have no fucking idea what I've been through so take that attitude and shove it up your ass," I said hatefully, entirely too done with her bullshit and Dakota's too to take them at the same time. Kallie was normally sweet and understanding; if I was different, then so was she. I barely knew who this was. "There's a guy out there who's going to kill us if we don't call my Dad."
"Wha—" Kallie shook her head, her eyes scathing. Yep, she certainly hadn't skipped over my first verse and yep, she certainly hadn't appreciated it. "The heck are you talking about? Is this revenge because I haven't talked to you?"
"Are you kidding me?" I looked at Brandon, gesturing towards his braindead sister. "Tell her. She isn't gonna listen to me."
"Yeah, it's true," Brandon said. He was so breathless that it was noticeable in his voice. "I saw someone outside. He was pale and had fangs. I think he was like Ro—"
"Brandon, we've talked about this," Kallie interrupted, cutting a glance at me that said all I needed to know. This wasn't a conversation she wanted to have in front of me. "I know you're good friends with that magician guy who claims he's a vampire but that doesn't mean they're real, okay? He's just crazy. You're starting to sound crazy."
"Wait, wait," I said, multiple bells ringing off all at once in my head. Uh. Did I hear that right? Brandon knows Roman? How the hell? I was completely dumbfounded. "How did you meet Roman?"
Brandon's face, flushed from his trip around the house, drained of its ruby color. "You… you know Roman?"
"More or less," I muttered. I understood now that Brandon did know what was going on and I misinterpreted his facial expressions and mannerisms. He probably didn't know as much about the situation as me but he somewhat knew what was outside. He wasn't paralyzed in confusion; it was fear and memories of someone who looked just like the douche outside. I have this backwards. "Listen, alright, that guy out there? Not friendly. My Dad knows what to do. Locked doors won't keep him out."
I omitted from telling them I left literally all of my belongings outside in my Dad's car.
Brandon was distressed, his sister following suit in expression. "But, what, why did you make me lock the doors then?"
"I didn't think you already knew about vampires," I said honestly. "I thought you'd feel safer if we locked the doors. We're fucked even more than we are if you pass out."
"I-I won't pass out. I just need to…" Brandon collapsed onto the floor.
Kallie flinched at the thump that followed. She made eye contact with me again. "I don't really believe you, Lissa, and I really, really don't believe Brandon, but… better safe than sorry, right? I don't want to take chances."
I nodded at her. "Right."
But I could feel something pounding at the barriers in my mind, screaming at me to let it in. It started out like a gentle knock, but it grew in crescendo when I pretended it wasn't there. Dakota was outside somewhere, and I couldn't understand how or why. I didn't know why he was trying to trigger me when he'd had all the time in the world since I'd been lucid. He could have done it days ago, could have done it when I was with my father or with Jared and Paul. He had all the chances.
He was on La Push soil. He was breaking the treaty. There was a specific amount of mileage he had to cover where he could sing to my conscience and enrobe me in a darkness of his creation. If he was here, the wolves would find him. They'd smell him. He had never wanted to stay hidden, but he'd never been this close. Sam had said anytime they tracked him after he came onto La Push soil, he was never this close to me. Even when he came to me when I was half-asleep at 3 am, Sam said that Dakota's scent was found in the trees. Nowhere close to my house.
My eyes widened when I realized what this meant.
He's going to delude me and hurt me in an illusion right in front of Kallie and Brandon, I thought, bracing for impact. The pack better hurry their asses up and smell him before he kills us all.
Dakota's offence didn't start out the way I suspected it.
No, no, the way it happened was something that took me entirely off guard.
Brandon's body went entirely still on the floor before his back suddenly straightened. His glossy eyes looked up and stared right through me.
"Bran?" Kallie said shakily, moving to help him up. He clumsily swatted her hand away.
"Don't touch me," Brandon shouted, his legs futilely pushing at the floor as he tried moving away from us. He ended up the same as he just was. He looked this way and that, unfocused and crazy-eyed, this same glossy shine haunting each pupil. "I'm scared."
So that's how someone looks during an illusion. Gloss on the eyes and blubbering insensibilities.
"What the fuck is happening to him?" Kallie hissed, nails digging into my arm. I never even noticed, in my daze watching Brandon, when Kal had moved over to me and started gripping my arm. It hurt. It hurt a lot. It hurt enough that I ended up yanking myself away from her, a grunt escaping me.
I rubbed at the bleeding nail bites, laser-focusing on Brandon. He had tears streaming down his face now, a large scratch going down the side of his face. Seconds later there was another one on his arm. Brandon was swatting the air now, screaming for something to stop, stop hurting me! Leave me alone!
He never… in all the times he hurt me, he never left a mark. Why were marks being left on Brandon? Why was he hurting him in the first place? Did me being descended from emissaries make me invincible from scars?
I whipped around to the front door. "Fuck you, Dakota! Just leave him alone!" I screamed, my voice as loud as Brandon's. A week ago, my father said that Dakota wouldn't go after anyone in this area unless it was me or him. But here he was, antagonizing a human boy.
Brandon went still again after a silence induced by my scream, a wad of snot dribbling out of his nose.
I marched over to the door, unlocking it and pulling out the key. Dakota wanted to play games; I'd show him a fucking game. I shoved the door open with a force I didn't even think I was capable of.
The open air was even colder than it was fifteen minutes ago. The trees were empty, a breeze shaking the pine needles and muck coating the fallen leaves. I regretted wearing a short-sleeved shirt today. I regretted leaving my jacket at home.
"Not gonna fuck with my car?" I yelled. Dad's car was still in the driveway. The tires looked intact, the windshield was perfect, and the only scratches on her were from my misadventures when learning to drive at fifteen. The coffee stain on the interior was all relative to my own past mistakes. "Not gonna fuck with me? Where the fuck are you?"
It occurred to me then. I had never seen Dakota in person. He was always disillusioning me or haunting me in my thoughts. He'd long been cemented as a real, marbled threat—but he felt like a fucking nightmare.
I was asking him to become real.
My breath escaped me involuntarily. "JUST SHOW YOUR—"
I never saw him coming until he was right in front of me.
My teeth clamped down onto my tongue as a hand both physical and stone-like crashed into my chest, sending me meters away and right on top of one of Kallie and Brandon's dogs. It was half-Pitbull and it let out a yelp and clambered out from underneath me when I landed.
"I know what you're planning, Alissa." I felt something push me over onto my back, a shoe that felt expensive and like leather.
I blinked tears out of my eyes. Stars sparkled in my vision, eliminating any chance I had to see the asshole standing above me. I reached my hand up and rubbed at my eyes until he wasn't just a blur of whites and browns and blacks anymore; I regretted it instantly.
Dark hair falling into his crimson eyes, perfect face clenched into a permanent frown. He was a charismatic bombshell. The Candyman of the modern decade, really. But there was none of that here when he wasn't disillusioning me to see him beautiful and invulnerable. I saw him for the hard edges and crazed energy he was.
Dakota was just as sinister and frightening as he was in my dreams. The fear I felt looking at him reached a magnitude from an additional factor that entered the game: this wasn't a nightmare anymore.
Don't show your fear.
Don't show your fear.
Don't show your fear.
"Ow," I said sarcastically, turning to my side and spitting out beside his shoe. Oh, look at that—it was expensive and leather.
Dakota kicked my head, making me swear and face vertical again. He wasn't using his full strength. If he wanted to he could kick my head right off and I wouldn't have much to say or do about it. I didn't know if he wanted to. I didn't know if he was playing with me. All I could think about was how he'd followed me here and hurt my best friend's brother for whatever reason and I didn't know if there was an escape that didn't end in death.
"You heard Brandon… talk about Roman, didn't you?" I said, struggling to talk past the pain in my head. I couldn't sit up, but at least I could see the monster above me. He was so young-looking, so brutally handsome—yet he was a murderer, a killer, a beast. It didn't make any sense. His bad habits didn't match his profile. "You're really not as subtle as you think."
Dakota hissed, "After I'm through with you, that child is my next target."
"Just leave him alone," I said, trying in vain to sit up. "It's me that you want. Not Brandon."
"He's a worthless human."
I scowled. "And you're just a worthless vampire."
He kicked my head again, right where the wound from riding in the back of Bella's truck was. I let out a short-lived yelp. He just opened up my wound.
"Fuck you," I spat.
"Our time together has been fun, darling—" Dakota's tone was mocking, no affection when his voice caressed the pet name. He toed me over onto my stomach again. "—but I'm tired."
"You don't fucking get tired." I pushed up on my elbows, pieces of grass sticking to my face. Numbness was spreading on my head and with it streamed liquid red, resembling my bloody Carrie cosplay from that stupid February day. "You're over a century old, shouldn't you be playing adult games? I—I've not done anything."
Another kick and I was on my back again. Dakota's face was as blurry as it was from the first pain-laced experience being on my back.
"I'm going to enjoy killing you and I'm going to enjoy killing your friends," Dakota crooned down at me. "Just as much as I enjoyed watching your grandfather and mother die."
Don't you talk about them.
"Shut up," I whispered brokenly.
"Watching your mother take her own life was nearly as beautiful as watching your father break."
"Shut up."
Dakota smiled humorlessly. "You're not anything of worth to me. You may think you have cracked the code but you've not. This obsession of yours won't save you and it won't save your father or your mangy mutt of a brother. You're as pathetic as your grandfather if not more—"
"JUST SHUT UP!"
I shot my hand out.
A loud howl echoed all around us, bursting my eardrums and causing Dakota himself to stagger back. My hand was glowing and burning, a sensation even worse than the ringing in my head. I was angry. The anger itself was so annihilating that every part of my body was bursting at the seams. I shouted in shock as I saw something black and graceful shoot out of my hand, where the light was emitting. I watched the shadow throw itself straight at Dakota and directly make impact with his chest.
Dakota went flying through the air, a sickening crack coming from where he hard and fast hit a tree.
There were shouts that came from in Kallie and Brandon's house.
"Oh my… God." I looked at my hand in horror. Amazement.
How did I do that? I didn't know.
I was only able to feel a little bit of relief before I heard the pieces of tree that fell down with Dakota go flying back into the pines. A whoosh of air made my shirt wallop against my skin. Dakota was above me again, mostly expressionless with the tiniest hint of anger showing.
I braced for death but didn't receive it.
"Emotions. Trivial things," he muttered, dusting off shattered bark on his shirt. "Has your father told you that anger and fear are the very fuel you channel to control your shields?"
"No," I said, nervously digging my elbows into the dirt and trying to drag myself away. "He hasn't taught me much of anything."
Dakota laughed before leaning down. He grabbed my foot and hauled me underneath him.
"I'm going to talk and you're going to listen, girl," he said. "You stole my memories. You've called Roman here, like the child you are, unable to fight your own battles. You're a thorn in my side. Everything you do is all but a burden on me. In the years I've developed my practice, not once has an illusion failed. Yet you… you're different."
"I'm not sorry."
Dakota laughed again. He grabbed my hand that had the moon tattoo and hauled me up, my shoulder nearly dislocating at his brute force not even a fraction of his true power.
I staggered away after he released. Emotions were how I projected a defender, but the power of my anger had evaporated in the wake of our conversation. I didn't know how to channel emotions to be advanced; knowing how to do any of it could have very well saved me by now if I wasn't so confused and naïve. Clueless, insolent, pathetic.
Clueless, insolent, and pathetic.
"I am not vengeful." I took another step back. The pack should have smelt him by now. They should have heard the howl. Why were they not here? Paul was on fucking patrol, wasn't he? "I do not seek to kill you as revenge from taking my memories and ruining decades of practice. I am not bloodthirsty. I do not do it because I am interested to see how you taste."
My breath hitched in anticipation. But he didn't continue.
Staring over at Dakota, I felt frightened. I didn't get frightened very often. Ever since learning about shapeshifters and vampires, my fright seemed entirely induced by him, by the idea of something inhuman. Induced by something only seen in books and movies. Dakota was scary. He's fucking terrifying.
His memories humanized and dehumanized him all the same. I felt emotions behind the layers of empty promises. He read auras, I saw his readings, but all I had the ability to do in his memories was analyze his own. He was so good at deceiving others that he inflicted the same deception on himself—and it worked like a fucking charm.
Dakota disappeared in a blur and appeared right in front of me.
He was average height, barely any taller than Brandon. I only had to tilt my head up to touch noses with him.
"I am not powerful," Dakota whispered. "I do not have the capacity to be and to do as I please and be granted unconditional loyalty from it."
"Then what are you?" I whispered back.
"I'm an executioner." Dakota's eyes never, in his entire dialogue, left mine willingly. "I kill because that is what I was created and assigned to do. I'm a follower. I kill and transition those who seek immortal life into eternity because I am asked to."
I blinked.
"Wanting you on my side is not something I personally care for. Your death or your transition are nothing to me. But whatever my superiors say, goes. And they can kill me just as easily as they built me."
"You're a liar," I said, shaking my head." You went to them because you wanted power. You never had to listen to them."
Dakota looked away from me, staring at the window behind me. I knew Kallie and Brandon were there watching like fools. He laughed again and he raised his hand up to cup my cheek. "You do not know all of my narrative," he told me softly. "Merely enough to craft one that's false."
"Maybe," I said in return.
"You never knew what you wanted, Dakota. You chased after other people's dreams. Power was all I ever wanted and I filled your head with thoughts of joining the Volturi. Eventually I chose and wanted a different path and you decided that my previous dream was the only one you'd ever known."
Oh my God.
The sudden voice, suave and with a bit of an accent, made both Dakota and me halt as we were nose to nose, my breath crystallizing and drumming against his mouth. It wasn't one I knew. It didn't come from Kallie or Brandon in the house. It sounded like Dakota's. It sounded too enticing to be true.
I looked in the direction the voice came from. I didn't stop my jaw as it unlocked.
A man with skin as pale and glistening as moonlight, with bleached hair that had chestnut peaking out at the roots, with a leather jacket that suited his stocky frame, with eyes. Quadruple fuck. His eyes. Amber brown, no trace of crimson.
But the crimson and new hairstyle weren't necessary in pinpointing who he was.
"Roman," I breathed.
A/N: I hope you guys are staying safe wherever you're at in the world right now. Shit be scary in the states rn; this shit be serioussssss
Moving on from the horrors of modern life, here's a second update this month—a gift to all of you who have nothing better to do than read at home (i.e., me).
How y'all feeling with this chapter? It suck? Sorry if it does—I swear to god I sometimes really hate this book and want to just delete it off the internet and pretend I never wrote it.
I've been reading over the story and holy fuck I kind of hate my own writing? I hate everything about it? Yuckkkkkk (I'll probably feel better about it when I finish it and get to go back and completely edit it)
But I appreciate my readers so here's a big uwu for u all! *heart heart heart*
Again, thank you SO, SO MUCH for taking time out of your day to tell me how you feel about this story. I read every single comment made. I take every criticism into consideration. You fucking rock if you comment.
Please continue to tell me how you feel about this story. Please please please. The more of you that do, the quicker I'll update I promise!
Next chapter is the end of Dakota's arc. It'll be big! BIG ASS UPDATE!
P.S. Survival by Muse is the song used in the dialogue section. And additional sowwies to anyone disappointed in this story/chapter 3:
