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Chapter 27 - Zafrina

A day had passed since the Couldn't-Help-Myself-Jumped-Jake-on-the-Rock incident, as I mentally referred to it. I had refused to leave my room, and my family had grown increasingly creative in their attempts to snap me out of it. None of said attempts had done the trick.

Stubborn was my other middle name, and I was sad.

I was surprised, then, to see Zafrina enter my bedroom. Of the many guests and family members to come "deal" with me, Zafrina was not one of the normal emissaries.

I gave her an inquiring sort of look, and she nodded, already understanding my question, "I told your mother I would talk to you, my Nessie, and after some talk, she came to agree with me."

I snorted a laugh in spite of myself. Zafrina seemed to scare the wits out of my otherwise calm and collected mother. A few dozen Volturi come to rip her family to shreds—no big deal. Mom took that in stride, but a few women in leopard skins—run for the hills! It didn't seem to matter that she was protected from Zafrina's images with her shield.

Zafrina sat down on my bed companionably, curiously pressing against the mattress with her fingers, as if to figure out the material. It seemed that once she judged it stable enough, she relaxed, and reached for my hand.

"I am glad to see your smile." Images flashed through my head—my blanched expression over the past week contrasted with the smirk on my face now.

"My Nessie, you have had some time to grieve. Have you gathered your thoughts?"

I didn't even breathe as I spat out my answer. "I want to butcher Olivier."

I showed her my version of Olivier on a pike. Zafrina didn't seem remotely affected by the picture. Once again she nodded thoughtfully, "I understand this."

"Do you? You are a vampire, Zafrina. You hunt humans."

"I am a vampire, Nessie. We hunt humans. It is our nature, but even among vampires we have honor. A vampire respects the territories of other covens. Vampires keep the secret. Vampires seek out mates—but we do not force them.

"This male has shown you great disrespect, Nessie. He has trespassed upon your coven's territory. He has used your fidelity to our secret as a means to manipulate you. He attacked you because you would not submit to him.

"If you did not crave vengeance, you would not be the young woman I have come to know."

"My family doesn't want me near him. They are trying to protect me."

Zafrina looked at me evenly. "It was wrong of you to seek out the male alone, but I think you have the right to face him with the help of others. You are a woman, now."

I smiled weakly at her. "My family treats me like a child."

Zafrina pursed her lips thoughtfully. "You were never much of a child, young one. Even as an infant, you possessed the knowledge of many years. I think your family misjudges you at their own peril."

I could have kissed Zafrina. I showed her this.

Her resulting laughter seemed to ricochet off the walls of the room. "I think not, young one. Your wolf-man, Jacob, he would be very jealous—and maybe Estela as well. She likes to make jokes about this, especially to my sisters and me."

I laughed with her this time.

"Zafrina, would you teach me how to fight?"

"You do not know the ways?"

"Eh, I understand the basics. I haven't had any real training, but more than that, I was hoping you could show me how to use my gift."

Zafrina considered my request, surveying my face before speaking again. "I will do this, my Nessie, but you must do something for me in return."

"Sure, anything."

"You will not seek out this male without others to help you."

I frowned at her.

She frowned back, giving me an uncompromising stare. Vampires don't blink. Half-vampires do.

"Fine," I huffed. "You're right. I promise."

"Good."

The family was not overly pleased with the deal brokered between Zafrina and myself. The collected family members and guests immediately erupted into an argument over my safety and how learning to fight "would just encourage me," but then Emmett made the mistake of saying something along the lines that the "men would keep the little lady-folk safe." Jasper and dad made the additional mistake of nodding their heads in agreement with him.

Rosalie yelled for two hours.

Mom gave dad the death stare. Mom never looked at dad with anything other than happy-ever-after adoration, so it was pretty disconcerting.

The emotions emanating from Alice were such that Jasper fled the room.

Carlisle, Jake, and Nahuel sat on the sofas in the corner of the grand room. They had tried to excuse themselves several times during Rose's tirade—but collective the death glare from the women in the room kept them locked at attention.

It all worked out very well for me.

I was to get lessons in "defense," and all present were sworn to see me through them.

My first few lessons were with Zafrina. We practiced ways for me to use my talent with only minimal contact. The instant my hand made contact I was to reshape the opponent's perspective so that the opponent believed my body was in a different attack position than it actually was. None of the moves would actually disable any of my opponents, but the tactic could successfully disorient them, and Zafrina thought that might give me enough of an advantage to make up for my comparative lack of strength.

Otherwise, I practiced mostly with Jasper, Rosalie, Alice, and Emmett. Jasper showed me how to attack using my agility. Sparing with Alice was entertaining because she frustrated so quickly. She even shredded her favorite Prada jacket after a particularly grueling round. She wasn't used to fighting a target whose future moves she couldn't see. She was a faster little sucker though.

I tried a single practice session with Estela.

Never again.

After she pinned me to the ground, she cheerfully began whispering an endless stream of unmentionables into my ear. Since all present observers were vampires, they heard every last word of it. This resulted in my mother flinging a rather surprised Estela off of me.

That was funny.

I spent a few rounds sparing with Nahuel. Nahuel was fast, strong, and a good teacher, but Jake's sad look was such that I didn't have the spirit to continue. Jake gave me deep, dark, heartbroken puppy dog eyes, and even if I still refused to talk to him and was as mad as anything, those eyes had their effect, and I made some excuse to Nahuel about needing to practice more with Zafrina.

I was a bit peeved when I realized that the New Year's Eve was upon us. This meant that Jake would be leaving within a week, and even though I hadn't exactly started speaking to him again, I did not like the idea of him leaving.

Moreover, my parents were also strung up on the whole question of whether or not I was returning to school. This was a topic of additional emotional turmoil. I hadn't really talked to any of my friends since the funeral. We mostly exchanged terse email messages in which gallons of sadness filled the space between falsely cheerful lines.

I had taken to hogging the piano in the grand room. It was somewhat apparent that my family preferred this particular outlet for my emotions over closed doors or rounds of tearful screaming. Dad definitely preferred it. Granted, the piano pieces that I played weren't exactly Babes in Toyland type of material.

The piano helped though. I let the crazy emotion and energy that was consuming me ring out through my fingers and synergize with the bass and treble of the grandiose instrument. My thoughts left me, and I could say through music what I couldn't say in words.

I was alternating between Beethoven and vintage U2 when the doorbell rang.

Another delivery.

This didn't surprise me. Emmett had recently been on an eBay extravaganza collecting 1940's baseball cards, and there was no stopping him. Rosalie had even threatened to shred the entire collection, but Emmett had threatened to retaliate in turn by painting her M3 mud brown. Apparently, they were at what my mother termed "an impasse."

Emmett raced to the door, apologizing profusely to Esme as he slid in front of her to get the door in the foyer. The door sprung open, and I heard a sharp intake of breath as the delivery man realized that the hulking shape looming in front of him appeared to be human.

"Got a package, man?" Emmett asked very slowly. I know Emmett didn't intend it to, but the slower tone inadvertently made him sound more menacing rather than less.

I heard something like a squeak, and then the scratching of a pen against paper.

"You can go back to your truck now." Emmett instructed the driver in the same controlled tone.

I heard the door swing shut with a thud.

Emmett was standing behind me in the next instant.

"Nessie you got a delivery." He sounded somewhat forlorn. I think I was starting to agree with Rosalie that his obsession with those cards was reaching an unhealthy level.

I didn't turn around. "Set it on the coffee table, Em."

"Aw, Ness, you're going to hurt little Jake's feelings."

I smelled them before I saw them.

I grabbed the pot from Emmett and slammed it against the wall. The porcelain from the pot shattered and soil and a few satin white petals coated the floor of the room.

Emmett's mouth hung open. "Well, I guess you're still mad at Jake."

I ignored him. I kneeled down then and picked up a small white tag at the base of the wall.

I broke the seal and read it silently.

"Dearest Renesmee. I have missed you so very much. Love and more, Olivier."

I strode out of room, passing the faces of my family and friends that had come to discover the source of the clamor.

I heard Emmett mutter to Jacob. "Apparently she really doesn't like orchids."

I was marching into the woods, and by the sound of the footsteps behind me, I knew that Jake was following.

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