-Chapter 23: Take the Long Way Home-

I probably should have known, as I stumbled up the stairs and out into the unknown of Seattle, that escaping wouldn't be so easy. A sniper bullet tore through my shoulder before I was able to cross the street and it knocked me off balance, sending me careening into a parked car on the curb. My hands splashed residual water on the pavement, leftover from the constant rainfall, and I screamed in pain.

The scientist and the soldier I had kind-of consumed hadn't been enough to replenish my store of biomass, and the constant wounds and bloodtox treatments were sapping my strength. I felt frailer than normal as I fought to get up and out of sight, whipping my head around to see where the shot came from.

It was exhausting. Another shot drilled into my stomach and I heaved, black goo sloshing on the pavement before the wound started to knit back together – albeit much too slowly to be effective. I stumbled to my feet and ran – hunched over – into the narrow alley behind me, flinching as another round embedded in the brick of the building.

"Shit," my deeper, male voice cried as I breathed hard, holding onto a dumpster for support. There was some sort of unintelligible shouting from the direction the shooter had been, and then the rapid beating sound of a helicopter approaching. I ducked into a doorway, flattening against the metal grate that was fastened over the back door of whatever store it was.

Where was everybody? I had no idea what time it was, but it was clearly daylight out somewhere behind the overcast sky. Seattle was a bustling city, normally; I had experienced that for myself when I had first come to Washington. Be it rain or shine, there was always a steady stream of traffic and the sidewalks were never derelict.

Except there weren't any cars driving by – only the few parked on the curb and the ones haphazardly stopped in the middle of the street. The only people about, that I had encountered, were military. A chill ran down my spine as I considered the worst: had the city already been overrun? That...was an interesting question.

No…no, wait. A faint sound brushed up against me, coming from far off in the distance. I strained my ears and closed my eyes, making shallow dents and cracks in the brick wall as I clenched my fists against it. On the edge of my hearing range I heard the honk of car horns and the revving of a diesel engine.

So…not overrun, but the area I was in was likely quarantined by the military. All I needed to do was make it into a populated area and I could lose the headhunters that were after me. The question was which direction to go; it was likely the military presence would be greater near the edges of their quarantine zone. I wasn't exactly sure where in Seattle I was or even what day it was.

How long was I gone?

In that lab, well, I didn't remember much – I was conscious for very little time there. It was possible that more time than I imagined had passed. I could have been there for months without even realizing it. The bloodtox had put me under so thoroughly, it was impossible to tell.

I heard the chopper pass overhead and relaxed further against the grate, forcing my body to morph back into my normal form of Bella Swan. I wasn't sure how that sniper had known it was me – or if he even cared who it was – but it was clear that disguises were useless in making it out of the quarantined zone if I was going to get shot at as soon as someone saw me.

Unless…

I stilled my movements completely and strained my ears, listening for any sign of movement or incoming vehicles. There was nothing close – only the waning chop of the helicopter.

I took a step out of the doorway and leaped up – not going as far as I had expected – and embedded my fingers and toes into the side of the wall, lunging upward and digging in again. I repeated the process two more times before I reached the roof of the seven-story building, where it would usually only take two jumps when I was at full strength.

With a running leap, I crossed over an alley and onto the roof of another building, heading in the direction of the mysterious shooter. As I launched myself into the air again, flipping onto a slightly taller building, I caught sight of the sniper about a football field-length away. He was concealed underneath a Jesus Loves You billboard that was bolted to the roof of an apartment building. The scope of the rifle reflected the sunlight and I watched as the man adjusted his aim.

I landed and immediately ducked behind an air conditioner unit. The bulk of metal lurched forward as I felt the bullet that was meant for me impact my make-shift shield. I acted immediately, ripping off a long pipe that attached to the unit and throwing it off to my left and hopefully drawing his fire. I went right, angled toward him.

The sniper immediately realized his mistake as he found himself aiming down the sights at the harmless bit of metal that was tumbling through the air toward the street. He was unable to correct and aim again in time before I closed the distance, my arms outstretched as I tackled him.

His bones crunched and cracked from the force and he let out a weak, strangled cry as the air was forced out of his lungs. His hands came up to stop me, but he was much too weak – even as drained as I was – and I punched through the light resistance of his military uniform and into his chest cavity. As the warmth of his biomass was assimilated, I pondered the odds of consuming two snipers in such short succession.

His name had been Floyd Lawton, a mercenary who specialized in long distance kills and trick shots. He didn't know anything of use, being a hired gun for the military after the infection had reached Washington State, but he did give me excellent cover for getting away and regrouping.

My biomass shifted and grew outward, adjusting my normal body into that of the mercenary sniper. I reached down and picked up the casings and extra ammunition, stowing it away in a bag with muscle memory I had only just acquired. I folded the legs of the sniper rifle and rested it against my shoulder as I leaped off the rooftop and down to the sidewalk below.

"Identify yourself!" one of the soldiers behind the makeshift barricade shouted, aiming his assault rifle at my head. I raised my left hand up as my right propped the sniper rifle over my shoulder, trying to appear non-threatening. I wasn't looking for a fight; I wasn't exactly weak anymore, but I'd quickly run out of biomass if this turned into another fight.

"Lawton; sniper!" I shouted back, my voice coming out in a strange half-American, half-English dialect. "Fuckin' plebs couldn't even hit me point blank with a shotgun; don't know how you expect to hit me with that nice toy ya' got there." I spat at them, playing up my disguise's volatile and arrogant attitude.

The soldiers relaxed slightly but kept their rifles aimed at me. They were suspicious, I could tell, and had no-doubt been informed of the infected's capability to impersonate other people. But I could also tell none of these men had actually fought something like me before; hearing about something and experiencing it were two vastly different things, so while they knew it was possible that the sniper that was walking toward them could be an unstoppable shape-shifting killing machine, their instincts would say I was safe.

Boy, was I glad these soldiers weren't the private security I had survived against in Phoenix, with their identical, rank-less uniforms and full-face masks. They would kill an entire neighborhood just to spite the spread of infection and deprive it of biomass, but these were still people. They still had their soul, I supposed.

"If you're a sniper, why are you off your post?" the officer gave me a critical eye and took a step back, pulling up a walkie-talkie out of his chest pocket and speaking quietly in to it, thinking I was unable to hear. "Green one, this is green three. We gotta 'Lawton' here; sniper, by the looks of him. He one 'a yours?"

Lawton's memories were unhelpful as to the specifics of their team designations, but he did know none of the regular army grunts would have anything on him. He had been hired off the books so that he could operate largely without interference from the government.

The small part of Lawton's personality I was syphoning off of cursed at me for walking out in the open like I had and getting caught. He didn't think anything good would come out of this encounter, and from the looks in the soldiers' eyes, I had to agree.

However, luck must have been shining on me at that particular moment, because just as I was contemplating the speed at which I would have to run to escape the gunships and tanks that would come for me after slaughtering this lot, the ground gave a terrible shudder and long, deep fissures shot through the pavement.

The soldiers crouched down and I spun around toward the epicenter, which was unmistakably a hundred feet behind me, in the middle of the street. The ground bucked again and the windows on the buildings on either side exploded from the tremors.

"What the fuck?" the officer cursed. I backed up to the group of men, my rifle down but ready, and prayed that I could get out of here without blowing my cover. "What in the world is that?"

"They're in the ground!" someone off to my right shouted. I gripped my rifle tighter, Lawton's instincts screaming at me to get to high ground and out of sight.

With an inhuman screech, an infected something broke through the pavement and erected into the air like a fifty-foot red and black worm. Strands and tendrils crawled out after it as it waved in the air, the tip of it—high up in the sky—was sharp and resembled a beak or a crab claw, and it snapped twice as it shook off the dust and debris from its emergence.

The men started firing almost all at once, once the shock of the thing wore off, and I quickly ducked under the traffic barrier to distance myself from it. Their bullets were small potatoes compared to that serpent, only flaking off small chunks of biomass from where they impacted.

A gunship roared overhead and the rapid-pounding sound of heavy machine gun fire ripped through the air, sparks of light flashing where the round hit the pavement, cars, and surrounding buildings. The bullets tore through the thing too, and a dark red mist started to waft off the stock-like monster from the shredding tissue.

I turned and broke into a jog as the infected gave a screech and wavered before crashing loudly into the side of a 15-story building, crushing the cars parked on the curb and cracking open a fire hydrant. The mix of destruction and spewing water from the hydrant was sufficient distraction to slip away and move toward what I hoped would be North-West.

The quarantine area was actually rather small: not even a mile in diameter. The patrols of military personal thinned and gave way to sporadic pedestrian foot traffic. I kept my head high and nodded to the grunts that were posted here and there a couple blocks outside the zone, making it look like I knew what I was doing and that I obviously belonged here.

I sighed as my body reshuffled into the form of the redheaded woman I had just consumed. I had made it far enough North that there wasn't any military presence that I could see as the day faded into night, but I still had to be careful. Amy—that was her name—was only the second person I had eaten since the fight. I could have had another two more, but I didn't want to attract attention to myself or give anyone a reason to look for me here.

Amy's memories revealed that the official story was that a mud-slide took out the roads in the area and knocked out power and communications. There were a few aerial shots Amy had seen on the news of what was supposed to be Forks, and it showed mud and debris completely covering one of the roads.

I clenched my jaw and brushed past a couple on the sidewalk, moving further west now. For all I knew, Forks could be gone. Seattle was far enough away and the sky was overcast enough that they could have firebombed the entire area and nobody would be any the wiser.

It was also the new year: January 2nd. I'd been gone for over a week and Christmas and New Year's Eve had come and gone. That alone was mind boggling; I had gone so long without sleep, always aware of the time passing, that an entire week and more gone in the blink of an eye was unsettling.

I turned the corner and was met with the dark green of Discovery Park. I recognized my surroundings now; I was as far west as I could go on this section of Seattle. The Pudget Sound stood in the way of Bainbridge Island to the west and the Olympic National Park beyond that. Still such a long way to go, but traveling by car would be useless, as the military would be watching the roads especially closely; and none of the Cullens' cell phones or landlines were working, so I couldn't get an idea on where everyone was at.

My only choice was to head back to Forks and hope I could find everyone; find Alice and Charlie.

I leaped into the water with a surge of strength and dove underneath the surface, kicking as hard as I could. Water, I had found, was for some reason unpleasant in large quantities like lakes or rivers. I figured this phenomenon must have been why the infection seemed to slow to a halt around bodies of water in Phoenix—not that there were many of those. Swimming through the Sound burned me mildly and I wanted to squirm out of my skin at the constant sensation, but I knew I needed to keep going.

It must have been ten minutes before I caught the fuzzy shapes of boats in the water on the edge of the island. Fishing and leisure vessels lined the docks as my head broke the surface of the water, steam rolling off my skin from the icy weather. I trudged up onto the land with my shoulders hunched, cringing at the sensation of the water shedding.

I folded my arms into my chest and hunched forward like I was fighting off the cold as I made my way down the street, heading north again. It was quiet out and the town I had washed up on looked very suburban, without the bustling streets and constant foot traffic. Bits of the sidewalk were cracked and upturned, and the dull brown of dead moss crept up and over the edges in places.

A military truck rolled up to the stop light ahead and I ducked into the parking lot of a diner on reflex, attempting to keep my face and posture neutral. My head was turned away, but my ears kept track of the engine as it took off on a green light, listening for a stutter in the acceleration or any sort of sign that they had detected me for what I was.

The truck rolled by and faded into obscurity within moments, and I let out an unneeded breath that I had been holding.

"It's open," a voice rang somewhere behind me and I froze, tilting my head so I could glance it the direction it came from.

Fuck.

A military soldier stood ten meters or so away from me, giving me an amused look as he leaned casually against the Humvee parked crookedly around the corner of the diner. The guy had cropped blond hair and tanned skin, like he was out in the sun all day, and he appeared to be around twenty-two or twenty-three — he was one of the youngest-looking soldiers I had seen since Phoenix.

"I mean, I didn't really look at the hours on the door, but the lights being on and people being inside…y'know, with the waitresses and such buzzing around?"He cocked an eybrow. "I mean, I'm no detective, ma'am, but that sorta seems like the kind of stuff that happens when a diner is open. So if you were unsure…" His voice had a southern twang in it, and someone's memories in my head recognized it as Georgian.

I gritted my teeth and shook my head, stepping away from the diner and making a b-line down the sidewalk. He was a cocky little bastard and I wouldn't mind maiming him just a bit, but I knew I really needed to stay under the military radar until I was at least closer to Forks.

"I didn't mean to put you off!" his voice carried after me and I hunched my shoulders and sped up a bit.

Don't follow me; leave me alone. Don't follow me; leave me alone. Don't follow —

"Really," his voice was closer and I heard his feet hitting the sidewalk as he jogged over to me. I cursed in my head and reluctantly slowed down so he could catch up; the quicker I could send him on his way, the quicker I could get back to Forks. "I know us military men can be mighty intimidatin'…" he trailed off.

"Look," I sighed, clenching my fists and trying very hard to keep a calm and collected composure while I wasted time talking to this soldier. "I wasn't going to go in, I just…nevermind. Thanks for apologizing, I guess, but I have places to go." I turned to leave, but of course he continued talking.

"On a night like this?" he asked, surprise and concern genuinely in his voice. "Even going a couple blocks isn't wise in this weather and with all the dangerous creatures roaming around and such."

"I'll be fine, I promise."

"Where you off to, if you don't mind my asking?"

"Africa," I snarked, my eyes giving a slight roll. "I'll be fine, I promise; now please, leave me the fuck alone." I made it a few more meters before I heard his voice again.

"Y'need a ride?"

I stopped and turned around, checking out the soldier's expectant expression while the Humvee still sat there in the background behind him. I smiled. He smiled back.

End notes: Oh, hello. I didn't see you there. It's been a few months (like almost 16 months lol). Now, I'm not competing for "longest wait in-between two fanfiction chapters" or anything, but I think it's worth noting that I didn't leave everyone high and dry, so if you want to give me a trophy or a prize or some money or something, I would never say no.

Next chapter (probably in a few years) will go into more of the military/government involvement in the virus and it's told from the POV of someone we have only seen in one scene but who will play a larger role later on in the story (I hope I can finish this god damn story before I die of old age).

Anyway: review if you liked it. Review if you didn't. If you have a funny joke or like a little poem or song or something, you can leave one of those there too. Just don't do it as a guest or else I can't stalk you afterward. kthxbai