She had brilliantly red hair, and I hadn't thought I'd be seeing her ever again. For some reason - and looking back on it I had absolutely no reason to - I had believed this woman dead. They had never told me she was dead. James was dead. The man who had - what seemed like forever ago - dragged me through the forest like a child does a rag doll. I had very nearly died. The Cullens had found themselves in a complicated race against time, a manhunt through the forest, trying to save my life. James had certainly died - ripped to shreds and burned by Alice and Jasper. But Victoria... she had escaped. They had lost her, never to be seen again. Alice was undoubtedly watching her decisions, figuring out where she was, if she were too close. So how had she missed this? I wasn't sure how far I had gone, but a human running at a swift pace for just over a day wouldn't get me too far out of Forks. Certainly for a vampire as well, this was a quick hop and step away from me. Perhaps nothing came of this meeting... or perhaps my being intermingled with Renesmee made our immediate future too blurry and complicated to see.

"Good evening." Victoria said, and I unwittingly let out a breath I'd been holding. It was surreal still, being able to see and not be seen.

"Victoria, wasn't it?" Garrett asked politely, nonchalantly, seeming wary, and - in my opinion - less comfortable with her than he had looked on that distant night with Edward and I.

"Indeed. How are you? How's the hunting?" She smiled, looking dangerous, flirty. Garrett laughed.

"I don't hunt here. The entire Olympic Peninsula is claimed by a significantly sized coven. I come for the view."

The coven he was referring to was of course the Cullen family. They asked their friends not to hunt near their homes, to avoid complications for them. It sort of touched me that Garrett, even presently unbeknownst to Alice and the others, would be honoring that, and enforcing it for others. Garret had barely looked at her, though his whole body seemed on the brink of attack rather than ease at the view. The whales he had been watching were still splashing away in the distance.

"You also come when requested, apparently." Victoria blinked coyly at him. Garrett's eyes flicked over her, taking her in. If I had noticed it - however fast it had seemed to me, the action which could have been done in mere moments had been drawn out forcibly. He wasn't taking any of her games. Friendly conversation was all that was occurring today.

"If I hadn't have been coming to the area, I wouldn't have agreed to meet you." Garrett warned, his tone and response still wary. "What exactly do you need?"

It was Victoria's turn to take a pause. She pressed her hands together in a steeple... this was business.

"I'm calling in a favour."

"I don't owe you any favours." Garrett responded, looking genuinely shocked, and forgetting about the whales.

"You owe James." She pointed out instantly, as if she had known that this would be his response. "And as his mate, I would hope it would extend."

Garrett narrowed his eyes at her, and then turned his gaze back to the horizon; to the whales. "I'll repeat. What exactly do you need? I'm no dog for you to command."

"All I need is information." She replied sweetly and courteously.

"On?"

"The Cullens."

Garrett's face made no discernible move, but he folded his arms. It took him a long while to answer, and his response was careful and calculated.

"There are seven of them. They have the claim here on the peninsula. They're good friends of mine. Fast, dangerous, talented. My extension of debt to you is not worth their ire."

Victoria paused, seeming to contemplate for a moment. Garrett's tone had made it evident he would not be the ally she had hoped for or counted on. "What about the others like them? I've heard there are more."

Garrett paused this time. I was waiting with baited breath. What exactly was her goal here?

"There are more. In Alaska. Denali I believe." He issued a warning again. "Their coven is smaller, but equally as talented. Some of them more so, from what I've heard."

"You've never met them?"

"The Cullens keep trying to send me that way." Garrett admitted. "But I always seem to get distracted." He gestured toward the aquatic spectacle occurring off the coast.

Victoria bit her lip, thoughtfully, paying no attention to the natural beauty before her. "Fine." She began to walk away, clearly done with this forced interaction. "Good evening."

"A word of warning." Garrett's voice rang out on the beach. Victoria slowed, but didn't stop in her walk. "The Cullens are the second most powerful coven in the world that I have ever come across, aside from the Volturi. Whatever venture you are concocting against them I would suggest you drop." He smiled, and took a moment to watch her retreating form for a while.

I continued to watch Garrett. He eventually gazed back to the ocean, but he seemed less peaceful about it this time. Studying his face up close, I could see that his eyes squinted slightly, then opened, then squinted again. He was clearly having some kind of internal debate.

"Aw hell, why not? It's a short trek." And he began to walk in the direction that I had been running from. There was a pretty sturdy chance he was going to go and visit the Cullens. Alice would have usually warned them, but I had the feeling that Renesmee and I had given her enough of a headache that she may have been doing what she tended to do to relax recently - focus on her and Jasper, and the little predictable mundane events of the day. She was unused to working hard at the gift that had so easily come to her before. I was going to have to probably make the trip back.

I couldn't outrun Garrett... but with the retractable leash that Renesmee and I held, I could get back there in a few moments. Even Garrett couldn't teleport. I had never instigated the snap back - Renesmee was so practiced at it, and we were rarely away from each other for long. I sat down - a moot point really in my non-physical state - and breathed deeply. I thought about my body, how it felt when I was in it, and the general direction I'd left it. I conjured up the mental image of me, fully physical, and how it felt being there - quiet, awkward, and hollow.

I suddenly experienced an extreme dampening of noise, my usual slight dizziness, and then an extremely confusing array of smells and an extremely hot sensation. I opened my eyes, and found my face pressed against a scathingly hot mass of sculpted copper skin. I froze with shock. There was an outrush of air, and a worried, familiar voice.

"Did I hurt you?"

It was Jacob. I realised that the reason I was so hot was that I was pressed - mostly naked - up against his mostly naked body. I barely had time to register all that my senses had taken in before every inch of me recoiled in horror. I shrieked, scratched, kicked, and clawed my way up and out. We both tumbled, in pain, and confusion out of Jacob's tiny bed, and down onto his floor. I hit my head on something on the way down, and the rest of the world exploded in warmth.