-Chapter 16, Ryan: Alaska-
I pulled away from the still-warm fur of the carcass and let it drop to the ground, sending up a puff of snowflakes as it hit. My tongue darted out of my mouth to clean my face of blood before I had the urge to wipe my mouth with my sleeve.
I stared down at the silent body of the moose for an immeasurable amount of time, looking into its glossy, glass-like eyes. I didn't feel bad about killing the animal; quite the opposite – I felt a warm glow every time I satisfied my thirst without killing a human. So no, that's not why I couldn't look away from my fresh kill.
It was the similarities – the same dull, zombie gaze that my sister's eyes had when we found her body.
What was this moose doing before I got thirsty? Did it have a family? Was it out looking for its own food? It was alive…and then it wasn't anymore. It didn't get to say a final word or make a last statement. No calling for help and no second chances. The moose was just gone – worm food.
I shook my head and stood up, examining myself for any stray blood streaks I may have gotten during my hunt. Once I was satisfied I was sufficiently clean, save for a few tears in my shirt, I took a step back and surveyed the ground around the dead animal.
I extended my hand and curled it into a fist, causing the ground to the left of the dead moose to shift and shake. Slowly, I raised my fist, smiling as I noticed the snow, foliage, and dirt start to lift off the ground. I jerked my fist away and the floating debris followed.
"Deep breaths," I spoke to myself, following my advice and breathing in. The woodsy smells of the cold, Alaskan forest were soothing, and aided me as I pushed all other thoughts away. "Focus."
I threw both my hands at the shallow hole I had dug and gripped the air again. The soil shifted hard, and I could feel the mini-vibrations under my feet. The trees in the area shook and vibrated, and if any birds or small animals had been around, I'm sure they would have fled from the phenomenon.
I raised my hands again, and couldn't hold back the massive grin on my face as an enormous ball of soil, rock, and tree roots rose up out of the crater I had made. Snaps and crunches could be heard when the tree roots broke and slapped against each other.
With a flick of my wrists, the debris ball flew over the smaller pile and landed with a dry smack, spilling out over the forest floor several feet. I wasted no time in picking up the carcass in the same manor I did the dirt and depositing it in the hole.
For a quick clean up, I raked my left hand in front of my chest, telekinetically pushing the removed soil on top of the grave. Once it was successfully covered, I flattened the same hand, palm down, and smashed the air. The results were immediate – the top of the disturbed soil was flattened and compacted, leaving only minute evidence something was buried there.
The sound of quick, heavy footsteps drew my attention away from my telekinetic practice, and my head swiveled to the right. The consistent snap of branches being smacked off of trees as the sound approached could only mean Emmett, and I immediately straightened out of the crouch I didn't even realize I was in. He smashed through the undergrowth and stopped two meters away from me.
"Dude," Emmett laughed. "Do you ever have your phone on?" I cringed at his question, suddenly realizing what the four or so clinking parts in my pocket meant.
"I think I broke it," I admitted. This was the third phone I had smashed to bits while hunting.
Emmett just laughed his signature, booming guffaw, not bothering to humiliate me any further.
"I bet I would have broken way more than you have if they would have been around in my first decade," Emmett turned his head as Jasper's voice rang out from a distance, telling us to 'hurry up.' "I guess we should get going." I nodded and started back in the direction of our newest residence.
"What's the rush, anyway?" I asked as soon as Emmett caught up with me, streaking along the left side as we rocketed through the evergreen forest.
"Why don't you just check your voice mail?" Emmett laughed at his own bad joke. I rolled my eyes, not even bothering to encourage him or goad him on. "Alice said Peter and Charlotte are going to show up in about an hour – she said it was important so we all needed to be there." Emmett shrugged as he ran, clipping another few tree branches in his stride.
When we broke through the tree line and arrived in the meadow that Carlisle and Esme liked to call a back yard, Edward and Jasper were already there, waiting for us. Emmett and I approached the log cabin themed mansion that was easily as intimidating as the home in Forks, passing by the other two and nodding; they nodded back.
"Shit," Emmett exclaimed, glancing down at his blood-soaked and mud-caked clothing.
"Emmett," Esme said from somewhere inside the house, not bothering to raise her voice. I cracked a smile as the juggernaut bounded away to the mudroom shower located in the attached garage.
I made my way through the front door and stepped inside the…open area? I never knew the name for it – it was the place on the other side of the front door. I made my way past that area and darted up the stairs to my room on the third floor. Edward and Bella had the other room up here, and I passed by Bella, who was reading on her bed with her door open.
Once I was inside the solitude of my own room, I took out the broken pieces of my phone and tossed them in my trash can. I kicked off my shoes and slid out of my shirt and pants, the latter dropping to the ground with a thud. My dead heart seized as I realized what I had left attached to my pants.
The holster was looped on my belt, and it easily slid off. I held the weighty object in my hand and felt the venomous tears prick my eyes as I turned it over and unsheathed it.
The blade was absolutely beautiful and timeless, truly a monument to everything Emily was and believed in – once you got past the serial killer bit. I levitated the knife three feet above my palm, spinning it around. The blade shook and began to go off-kilter as the revolutions turned and spun, and I had to catch it before it went through the floor.
I stuck it back inside its holster and set it on my dresser, letting out a sigh as I walked into my adjoined bathroom. Emily always made it look so easy, the way she could move that blade around – it was like it was a part of her, no less than her arms or legs. My fists clenched and I brought them up to my face as I gazed at myself in the mirror above the sink.
The scars and jagged patterns on my hands and fingers reminded me of Jasper's skin. They were reminders and lessons learned from my practice with the only indestructible object on Earth. My gaze slipped past my fingers and I caught sight of my face.
My straight black hair was only about two inches long, and gave off a professional vibe that Edward's or Jasper's never would. I traced the contours of my face with my eyes, taking in my appearance.
I looked to be about twenty-one or twenty-two, though I wasn't sure which since the HLV formula actually aged me backward. I cracked a smile as I recalled the last time I was together with my sister, who looked several years younger than I was, but was in reality almost four years older. It was yet another side effect of the serum, though it was a moot point now, as I was a vampire and my sister was…gone.
I stepped into the shower and let the heat soak into my stone skin as I lathered my body with soap. I pressed my hand against the side of the shower and closed my eyes, sending a pinprick sensation through my back from the perpetual stream of water pellets hitting the same spots on my skin.
The rest of the family looked at me with pity most of the time, but they never brought Emily up when I was around – the wound was still too fresh. I felt so misplaced here, with these people – with these vampires.
Emily was the one who befriended them and the Quileute, not me – I was just the idiot newborn who attacked and had to be saved. She's the one who fit in, even if she never believed it herself. I was just the shadow – the less powerful, secondary, one-dimensional character who followed the ghost of my sister because I had nowhere else to go.
I didn't know what it was like to lose a mate, but if it was worse than losing your only real family I wasn't sure I ever wanted one. I wasn't sure I would ever get over this, and I didn't want to as long as a single Volturi walked the Earth.
To be honest, sometimes I slipped into a quazi-denial state about Emily. It was childish, I knew, but I always had a sort of 'hero worship' about her. She was a force of nature and never lost a fight in all the time I had spent with her, roaming the country. She took on vampires, for crying out loud – as a human. To think that something could snuff her out and remove her from the Earth – it was difficult to process.
The bathroom tile started to groan under the pressure of my palm as I seethed silently. I just couldn't understand the amount of evil the Volturi had to have to kill my sister. She wouldn't have told anyone about vampires and she didn't want to overthrow them. Her death was such a waste.
My hand slipped down the tile and fell to my side and I turned around to shut off the water. It was beginning to run cold anyway – not that that mattered to me.
I exited the shower and pulled on a pair of blue jeans and a white t-shirt. I grabbed Emily's knife and a belt and secured it to my side like my sister used to do. It felt good…and familiar, and I took comfort from that as I descended the stairs and entered the living area.
Bella and Edward trailed in after me and I suddenly realized that everyone was already here – the two behind me quickly took their seats and I leaned against the wall. Carlisle, Esme, Rosalie, Emmett, Alice, Jasper, Jacob, Seth, and Renesmee all sat crammed into the chairs, couches, and loveseats scattered about the room.
My eyes fell on the two visitors who were the only other ones, besides myself, who were standing. Peter and Charlotte looked…worried? The mood in the room seemed serious, but not a serious as it was when we discovered the Volturi were coming after us. What had happened? Edward glanced up at me.
"We're just waiting for the Denali's," Edward said to me. I nodded and let out a breath, waiting in silence for our 'cousins' to show up.
It didn't take long at all. They came by foot, since it was much shorter a trip than the winding, narrow trails that looped around the national park. Tanya entered first, followed by Kate, Garrett, Eleazar, and Carmen. I scooted further down the wall so that they had a place to stand as well. Once everyone was inside the crammed room, Carlisle stepped forward.
"Thank you all for coming," Carlisle started. "Peter, Charlotte, the floor is yours." Carlisle sat back down with Esme and allowed the two red-eyed vampires to speak. Peter nodded to Carlisle and clasped his mate's hand with his own.
"Charlotte and I were hunting in Las Vegas when we came across a newborn," Peter paused and pursed his lips. Edward sucked in a breath – his eyes widened in surprise, though he didn't say anything. "The newborn was carrying with her…a hybrid child."
"Like Renesmee?" Jacob asked, his eyes automatically gravitating to his imprint.
"Yes," Peter nodded. "She was several months younger, by the looks of her, but she was a human-vampire hybrid, to be sure.
"We approached her, of course, since we had never seen such a child since your Renesmee. She was afraid of us and tried to flee. We stopped her from running, but she was…vicious in her defense." Peter let out a sigh and shook his head and rubbed what I assumed was a fresh bite mark on his hand. "Charlotte was able to calm her down eventually after we assured her we didn't mean her or her child any harm."
"It was her child?" Bella questioned. "But I thought that they all killed the mother during birth. I mean, except…" She looked at Edward and then Carlisle before returning her gaze to Peter. He nodded at her and continued.
"Yes, Joyce told us the hybrid was her own child. We asked her how she had survived giving birth – who had changed her – but she said she and her daughter had to get away from her."
"From whom?" Carlisle prodded.
"She didn't know her name," Peter shook his head. "Joyce didn't see much, but her daughter did – she had to piece together her own mother after they were attacked. The hybrid – Anne – said the vampire who had attacked them had strange colored eyes."
"Surely you don't mean one of us did this?" Tanya said, obviously offended.
"No," Peter shook his head and looked down. "I did, at first, I'll admit. There are so few of us who share your diet. I asked her if they were gold, but she told me they weren't. She said they were 'like metal.'"
"Metal?" Carlisle asked, his eyebrows shooting into his golden hair. My expression was probably the same.
"The child pointed to my belt buckle," Charlotte spoke for the first time, rubbing the shiny steel along her waistline. "She told us it was the same color as the vampire's eyes."
"I've never heard of a vampire with silver eyes," Carlisle shook his head, looking a bit lost. "Gold, red, black, even orange – when one is converting to our diet – but never a silver color."
"Nor have I," Eleazar said.
"Maybe it's a hybrid," Alice supplied. "Renesmee has brown eyes; wouldn't it be possible for one to have silver eyes?"
"It's possible," Carlisle mused, glancing at Peter.
"I don't know," Peter shrugged. "We tried to convince her to come with us to meet you so Edward could read their thoughts, but they wouldn't."
"More than one?" Edward suddenly asked aloud, clearly picking up on some unknown thought.
"Yes," Charlotte said. "The girl…she didn't exactly give us a number, but she told us there were more hybrids where they came from."
"And this attack…took place in Nevada?" Jasper questioned.
"Mexico," Peter corrected, scrunching his eyebrows together. "They fled into the ocean and swam north. You don't think…"
"I wouldn't see how Maria could have known about hybrids so soon," Jasper shook his head. "But it is worth looking into."
"What about Joham?" Bella asked. "Couldn't he be behind this?"
"It's possible," Jasper frowned, clearly not liking the uncertainty.
"Thank you for informing us, Peter, Charlotte," Carlisle got up to shake their hands. "If you hear anything more of this, let us know, please. And be careful."
"We will," Peter nodded at Carlisle, then Jasper. "Major." The two of them quickly filed out of the house and blurred away into the forest.
End notes: Like I said, I don't like to switch POVs too terribly often. But every once in a while it's worth it in order to let the story develop. This is probably going to happen again before the end of the story (maybe twice), but for the most part it's going to be back to Emily's perspective.
In other news, this story (and Immovable Object) has been added to the "Outstanding OCs" community. That's always good news.
So...yeah, I suppose you could always drop a review and let me know how I'm doing. That would be great, thanks.