Wow. It's been a while since I last updated. I've been busy with school and several other things and haven't had a whole lot of time to write. Also about halfway through the chapter I hit a spot where I just couldn't get past it. Nothing I wrote seemed to to be right. It wasn't until I went on vacation to a Bed and Breakfast in South Dakota with my family where there was a pool table that I got the inspiration to finish the chapter.
Hopefully the next chapter won't take as long to write.
It was a week and a half before I heard from Kyle again. In that week and a half Angela had managed to talk me into finding a date for the Spring Dance, Rosalie had tried following me home three times only to have me lose her since I could out run her on my Harley, and Edward managed to get under my skin in every way.
Fuck, I had dreams about the vampire. Some of them I would wake up sweating profusely and have to get a beer from the fridge so that I could get the image of his partially naked body out of my mind. How I was imagining him in sexually oriented dreams I had no idea considering I had never seen him wearing anything less than jeans and a jacket.
I was in the middle of Calculus homework late Friday evening, I wanted to get it done before the weekend officially started, when Charlie looked up from the TV.
"Kyle's gonna be here in about a minute and thirty-three seconds. He wants you outside waiting for him."
"What's the deal?"
"Don't know but he's doing about seventy and he's not stopping for you to get in."
Shit. It was something pretty important for Kyle to be driving like that on urban roads. "I hope he's on a motorcycle," I grunted as I bolted for the door.
Nope. Aston Martin Convertible. Charlie's telepathic voice rang through my head as I lowered my center of gravity and sprinted down the road as fast as I could. Wearing the proper running apparel I could easily compete with the top male athlete's in the world, possibly beat them, but wearing boots, jeans, and a black tank top I was lucky if I could push twenty-two miles per hour. This was still over forty miles an hour slower than the car Kyle was driving. I had to time everything about this perfectly according to sound.
The quiet roar of Kyle's engine was already quite loud to my ears and I could just barely hear the sound of the tires on the pavement. Times like these I wished I had the senses of a vampire. Kyle could have done this in his sleep, if he could sleep that is.
I leaned backwards and felt the edge of the hood grace my butt. Praying that I did everything right I lifted my legs up as fast as I could, rolled over my back, grabbed the top of the windshield and plopped down into the passenger's seat. To say my heart was racing was an understatement at the moment.
"I'll give you a nine point four on the dismount," Kyle remarked as he floored the gas pedal accelerating to speeds well over three times the roads legal limit.
"Enough with the lame jokes," I shouted over the wind, hanging on for dear life as my superior deftly weaved through Forks evening traffic and shot out of town heading west, "Robert was able to pull them off because Robert could make just about anything funny. What the hell is going on? You said you'd check in with me."
"This is checking in with you," Kyle grunted, swerving around a mini-van and squeezing back into the right lane between it and the oncoming car in the left lane. Whatever this was apparently was fucking important. The higher the importance of an event the more reckless Kyle drove on the way getting to it.
Kyle was too busy avoiding cars, sometimes driving off onto the gravel roadside to pass cars so as to not hit things, to fill me in on what the situation was. I tried to put things together in my head as I gripped the edge of my seat.
Heading west. Kyle was investigating a group called Friends of Humanity. Said group was developing a virus that attacked the immune systems of Meta-humans, which included shape-shifters.
The La Push Reservation was west of Forks. There was a bonfire going on there tonight according to Charlie.
So what was the connection? I got the idea that the Friends of Humanity wanted to test the virus but the La Push wolves weren't in the database that had been hacked at the Pentagon.
It clicked. "The Friends of Humanity wouldn't be testing their new virus out on the wolves tonight because we aren't keeping tabs on them would they?" I shouted at Kyle.
"Took you this long to figure that out?" Kyle shouted back, "We're only halfway to the reservation."
I glanced at the speedometer. 203 miles per hour. If I knew the limits of the cars Kyle drove this wasn't the fastest he could push the car to go.
"How many people are we looking at?" I asked as Kyle rocketed around a ninety degree turn almost going off the road and into the left hand side ditch.
"Judging by the size of the wolf pack the Friends of Humanity are likely to have around thirty individuals in this group," Kyle answered not even blinking as we roared passed a police car. It didn't matter if the police paid attention to us at this point since Kyle was going so fast. By the time they turned around or pulled out we would be a dot in the horizon.
"Charlie has called the police in the area to go investigate but it's likely that they won't get there until after we do," Kyle continued, I caught a glimpse of the speedometer, we were slowing down, "we just need to keep these guys busy until the police get there."
"We're there already?" I asked a little disbelieving. It had taken Kyle about three minutes to drive from Forks to La Push.
"Bella, do the math. It's about twelve and a half miles from Forks to La Push. Going two hundred miles an hour means we've been going a little over three miles a minute. Since we're going to be going in as if we've been out hiking I'm stopping a little short of La Push," Kyle said, I could practically hear his eyes rolling.
"Alright, fine. So math isn't exactly my strongest subject!" I grumbled raising my hands into the air in an exasperated gesture. I slouched back into the seat as Kyle skidded to a halt and shut the car off. We both hopped out of the car and Kyle had trunk open before my feet hit the ground.
Fucking vampire, able to move in a blink of an eye.
Inside the trunk were two walking sticks, hiking backpacks, and a jacket for me. Slipping the jacket and a backpack on I grabbed the walking stick Kyle had left and closed the trunk. Kyle was already running ahead of me, though not by much. He was the vampire after all and I just the Meta-human. I needed all the help I could get if I wanted to match pace with him.
I could smell campfire smoke and hear the sounds of a bonfire party from where we were. Judging by how well I could hear the noise from here and knowing how close Kyle was likely to get to an objective before taking off on foot we were about a mile from where we were heading.
Kyle had slowed up so that I was running alongside him on his left. Abruptly he reached out across my body and we came to a stop. About a hundred meters from where we stood was the clearing where the bonfire was. I could hear teenage voices laughing and I could smell some arousal through the smoke. Hmm, somebody wasn't being a good little boy or girl tonight.
[Can you see anything from here?] I signed to Kyle. The sign language developed back during the Second World War was still being used today. As intricate as it was simple all there was to it was the number and order of fingers being held up on your hand at a given time. Considering there were thirty two combinations available it was fairly easy, each combination represented a different letter of the alphabet. The exceptions were a raised middle finger, raised middle finger and thumb, closed fist, thumbs up, little finger raised, and middle and fore finger raised.
The two with the middle finger obviously was the universal sign for "fuck you" and Kyle and Robert didn't want to get things confused with common letters. A closed fist symbolized the end of a word. Thumbs up was like the middle finger only for "OK" and was left out of the letter system to reduce confusion. The fore and middle fingers raised were used to symbol quotations, and the little finger was a question indicator.
All words were signed with the right hand and all numbers were signed with the left hand.
[I can see…] Kyle paused, tallying the numbers of people he could see, [about 20 or so partiers and 33 members of Friends of Humanity from where we stand.] He pointed with his stick over to our right into the shadows of the trees. The shapes of humans could barely be made out but it looked like they were sporting more than just the virus. I could see at least one assault rifle.
Kyle pointed to himself and then to me. [Hikers] he signed, [act casual.]
I nodded and motioned for him to take the lead. With Kyle being larger than me it looked more authentic if he were the one leading.
Several large boys, who I recognized from Charlie's mental projections, turned to meet us as Kyle stepped into the light of the bonfire. I sniffed them out to see if I could smell any signs of aggression; increased hormone output, at times sexual arousal, sweat glands increasing production. The overbearing smell of burning wood and alcohol masked any scent that may have been present. Posture gave them away perfectly though. Godfredson would have a sadistic grin on his face right now if he were here and being put into a position to train them.
"Pardon the intrusion," Kyle said walking right up to the biggest one, Sam Uley, "but the forest is rather disorienting after dark and my sister and I are having some trouble finding our way back to our car. Is there a trail around here that might lead us in the right direction?"
"Why does a vampire need a trail in the dark?" Sam growled back at Kyle.
The party seemed to die at the utterance of "vampire" and everyone in the firelight was now watching the exchange between Kyle and Sam. The two men's behaviors were in stark contrast to each other.
Kyle stood quite relaxed, feet shoulder-width apart, right wrist resting on the top of his walking stick with his left hand resting on top of everything. Nothing about him looked threatening. He was beautiful in that way. I had no intentions of becoming cozy with my superior but there was no denying that Kyle was beautiful. And here in the shadows of the firelight his beauty showed itself in the way it was meant to be seen. If I were not used to working with him the sight of him would be awe striking. Several of the girls at the party were avoiding looking at him, or trying to I kept seeing their eyes glance at him and look away.
Uley towered over Kyle. He wore no shirt, unlike Kyle who had a leather jacket over his, and every muscle in his torso was vividly on display. The way he glared down at Kyle, his shoulders hunched forward to show off his shoulder and chest muscles, his fists clenched, his entire body vibrating ever so slightly made me want to roll my eyes. In terms of Alpha Male pissing matches if size and bulk was what won Uley had it in the bag hands down. But that wasn't going to help him here. For all his size and bulk, the shape shifter couldn't stand up to Kyle on Kyle's worst day and if the virus the Friends of Humanity had cooked up actually worked it would likely just make the affects take longer to go full circle.
"All the same," Kyle said amiably, nodding his head to one side, "I would prefer not to go traipsing through the woods disturbing ecosystems thousands of years older than I am so that I can find my car. Just because I could take an action doesn't mean that I will. I ask again: is there a trail nearby that might lead back to where my sister and I parked our car?"
"Where did those two come from?" I heard someone whisper from the woods behind me. Knowing that Kyle could handle the situation with the wolves I turned my attention to the crowd of fanatics in the trees to our backs.
"I don't know, dammit, they just showed up out of nowhere," the response to the question came.
"Don't you know who they are!" another voice hissed angrily.
"So you're saying that because I happen to be a vampire and she happens to be human this means that we can't be brother and sister, is that what you're trying to say?" Kyle asked the boy to the left of Uley. He was a little shorter and not quite as bulky. From Charlie's mental picture shows I recognized him as the son of the reservation elder Jacob Black.
"I find it difficult for a leech like you to feel any sort of kinship with their food," Black snarled back.
"See that brings up an interesting conceptual picture," Kyle commented, shifting a little bit, pointing his hand at Black, "You see a leech is a parasitic organism that latches onto its host and continuously feeds from it and must be forcibly removed should the host notice its presence. If not the leech will release its grip once it has fed to a point where it no longer needs sustenance, leaving the host organism blissfully unaware of its presence and no worse for wear.
"Now if you think about it being a leech isn't so bad. Both parties get what they want: the leech got its food and the host got to go on with its life. In fact in some cases leeches have even been used to save lives…"
"What the hell is he going on about?" someone from the Friends of Humanity whispered behind us.
"Some bullshit on how bloodsuckers could be of benefit to society," another whispered back, "I don't believe a single fuck'n word of it. Hodge! You've got the silver bullets in case ones of these shitheads showed up."
"Yeah, yeah. Keep your dick in your pants," 'Hodge' replied. I swallowed. Hodge was off to my left. Forty to forty-five meters. If the shooting started Kyle was going to need to stop the darts from reaching their targets. That meant that he couldn't be taking bullets so that they weren't going into the crowd of people in front of us.
"…you just waltz in here. Uninvited. Preaching bullshit to us about your kind—" another shape shifter started ranting to Kyle.
"Boys. Chill," a new feminine voice raised itself over the dick measuring match the wolves had started. They wouldn't have won if it had been a real one. The only person I knew with a bigger dick than Kyle was James and the two brothers were fighting on the same side.
Black and Uley both jumped slightly at the sound of the girl's voice. Stepping back, they revealed the speaker.
"Whooooo—that bitch is a hottie."
"Come on, Hank, pull your act together we have a job to do."
"Hey, can't I appreciate the view while I can? I mean she's gonna be a decaying corpse in a few minutes for fucks sake. Shame really, I'd fuck her."
Whatever conversation was going on between Kyle and the wolves now was being drowned out by the whisperings of the Friends of Humanity. As far as I knew the police were still on their way. That meant there were two of us standing between them and their potential victims who looked about as ready to tear us apart as they were to listen to what we had to say.
Black was arguing with the girl who had stepped forward. They were talking loud enough that I could understand a few words, or I could've had they not been arguing in their Native American tongue. All this arguing was starting to give me one hell of a headache. I prayed that someone would crack first (hopefully the Friends of Humanity) and attack that way all this talking could stop and I could get back to my Calculus homework that was lying unfinished on Charlie's kitchen table.
That's when it happened.
Behind us and to the left there was the unmistakable click of a gun being taken of safety. Kyle was talking with the wolves again, though I bet he had heard everything that was going on behind us. Time seemed to slow for me. My grip on my walking stick tightened. I could feel my heart race inside my chest. All sounds other than the sounds of 'Hodge' and his assault rifle with the silver bullets became a fog of intangible noise.
Click.
BANG.
I reacted. It was so fast I don't think I could have even thought about what I was doing. All I could think was I had to stop that gun from shooting anyone. At the first sound of the trigger being pulled my body turned and threw my walking stick like a spear at the noise. Judging from the crunch of metal and the sound of the bullet flying over our heads and sailing into the woods I hit my mark dead on. Not bad for practically shooting blind.
That got them running. Once the Friends of Humanity saw that we had probably heard every word they said they scampered like rabbits. I think Hodge might even have pissed his pants. I couldn't keep the smirk back as I turned around to face the wolves and Kyle.
"What the Hell was that?" Uley demanded. I hid a laugh at his attempt to keep his tough guy look. It was blatantly obvious that he had no clue what was going on in the woods outside of the firelight.
"Well if all that testosterone hadn't gone straight from your dick to your head the moment a vampire showed up you might have been able to hear it," the girl snorted while smacking Uley up the backside of his head.
Black gave a resigned sigh. "Yes," he agreed with the girl, "But there's also this thing called a "treaty" that doesn't allow them to come on our lands. So—"
"So you look over any sort of threat that doesn't immediately present itself to take on a threat that you don't even know is an actual threat even though the unseen threat is actually far more life threatening than a vampire standing in front of you asking if there's a trail nearby so that he and his human sister can return to their car," Kyle casually observed, "Confusing? I know. The reality of the situation often takes years to sink in."
The boys just stared at Kyle like he had been speaking to them in Latin, which considering their age and intellect might not be that far of a jump to conclusions. The girl, whose name I finally remembered was Leah Clearwater, seemed to be following Kyle's roundabout logic much easier.
I'm not sure what I had expected for Leah after Charlie's debriefing of the wolves but what was in front of me now wasn't quite what I had thought she'd be. She was taller than most girls, I'd give her about five foot nine maybe five foot ten, bigger than me and taller than Kyle but far smaller in comparison to the male shape shifters. Her clothing didn't surprise me: denim shorts and a raggedy tank top that were likely a size too small for her because she could only phase clothing that was skintight. Her hair on the other hand I hadn't been expecting. I would have expected her hair to be long, possibly braided or in a ponytail. Instead it was short. I mean as in guy short. In fact she had the same hairstyle that all the male shape shifters had.
"So what was it that you two wanted out here?" Black asked, crossing his arms and taking a step between Kyle and Leah.
"That group that was behind us," Kyle jerked his head toward the forest, "Imagine the KKK only a bit more violent. Arrests have been made because members have publicly killed individuals simply because they are considered to be "non-human". They've yet to kill a vampire or werewolf as those are the most difficult creatures to kill but they have successfully targeted humans who have special abilities."
"Uh-huh," Uley nodded, clearly not believing a word Kyle was saying.
"Because of this groups aggressive nature our superiors in the governments military have assigned the two of us to this area to try and keep incidents to a minimum," Kyle continued, "So far we've yet to locate any sort of headquarters so most of our duties have been to prevent confrontations. Tonight's debacle was one of the less messy operations."
"And we just have to take your word for all this?" Uley's eyes narrowed.
"Well it's not like we're going to be around long enough for you to get more of an explanation," I remarked. Kyle took the hint and the forest flashed before my eyes in a blur of shadows. I'd never been one for getting motion sickness so the intense speed might have been enjoyable had there been light to watch my surroundings fly by.
And just as sudden as the ride began it ended and Kyle was balancing me as the blood returned to my head.
"Impressive aim," he said, handing me my walking stick, "It seems that sixty years hasn't weakened your ability to shoot blind."
I snorted, knowing the incident during the mission in 1945 he was referring too. I chucked the stick and the bag into the trunk with Kyle's stuff before walking to the passenger's seat. I kept the jacket. It was made with fine heavy leather and fit perfectly. No way was I giving this baby back to Kyle.
"Operations log thirteen," I glanced over at Kyle, sitting in the driver's seat with what seemed to be a recorder placed against his mouth.
"Mission with Agent Creed a success. Zero casualties. Relations with La Push Shape-shifters remains would be referred to as tense. Pack predominately male with one female as the Intel suggested. Female appears to be more level headed than males, though males are in charge. Resume log in secure location."
He shut off the recorder and stowed it in a pocket lining the inside of his jacket. "Want a drink?" he asked, turning his head to look at me.
CLACK. The Cue Ball struck the triangle of pool balls on the table sending them rolling apart from each other. A solid ball rolled into the back corner pocket.
"So why are you drinking beer?" I asked Kyle, walking around the table to get a better angle for my next shot.
"I can eat or drink any food or liquid that humans consume," Kyle replied, leaning casually against a barstool, "It just has no nutritional or metabolic value to me." He raised the glass of Scotch he bought for himself to his lips for a brief drink.
I grunted as I missed my third shot. Kyle gave me a small smirk as he set down his glass and retrieved his Pool Cue. Sitting down on the stool that he had just been leaning on I grabbed my beer and emptied the bottle. The bartender gave me a nervous glance as he gave me my fifth beer of the evening. I was more concerned about Kyle beating me before he realized the game was over.
"So you said that you were concerned about what you're feeling around this vampire Edward Cullen," Kyle said, finally stopping his walk round the pool table to scout out the perfect shot.
"I think I know what I'm feeling I'm just not sure why I'm feeling the feelings," I sighed, "And will you take your damn shot already."
"And what is it that you think you're feeling?" Kyle asked as he leaned over the table. He punched the Cue Ball with his cue. The white ball shot diagonally across the table to hit the side, bouncing off at an angle and rolling until hitting the far end of the pool table where it ricocheted off in a new direction hitting a stripped ball that rolled into the right middle pocket.
"Oh, great. Not only are you going to beat me but you're going to show off while you do it," I groaned, "Okay, I think I find Edward Cullen attractive. Sexually."
"And this is a problem?" Kyle asked, sounding hardly surprised.
"Kyle! I'm almost a hundred and forty-two years old and this is the first time I've ever felt like this!" I hissed exasperatedly, "I mean you're two hundred ninety how many times have you been attracted to someone like this?"
"Three times," Kyle replied as he set up his next shot.
I stared at him in disbelief. Kyle Moor. Vampire. Predator that uses sexuality to draw in its prey. Epitome of desirability for the female sex. Had only been attracted to three people in nearly three hundred years.
"Three?" I laughed as I watched Kyle execute an equally absurd shot as his first.
"The first one was six months prior to being turned. That fling lasted up until I became the way I am now," Kyle explained while taking a sip of Scotch, "I found out she was pregnant a few months later. I lost track of the family around the time of the Civil War.
"The second one was you," he continued as he hit the Cue Ball in a simple shot. It hit a solid and a stripped ball at the same time causing them to roll toward corner pockets. The solid ball fell in first.
"I believe that makes it your turn," Kyle told me.
"You were attracted to me?" I quirked an eyebrow at him as I took my place by the table.
"Bella, look at yourself," Kyle sighed, "The fact that you have an entire high school vying for your attention should tell you that you are physically attractive. I am no different. However I am able to recognize when it is not my place. My initial attraction to you was most likely because you reminded me of my sister."
I gave Kyle a look as I sunk one of my balls in the left side pocket.
"Rape victim," Kyle finished.
I swallowed. It was easier now that it had been over seventy years but the memory of being raped on the floor of the bar back in 1933 still gave me the shivers. I took a gulp of beer before heading back to the table to set up another shot.
"Ann still reacts the same way when that topic comes up," Kyle told me as I missed my shot, "The memory of it will never go completely away. It will fade in time but the phantom of it will always be there."
"Who's the third person?" I asked shaking my head to rid myself of old haunts. My beer tasted bitter as it passed my tongue and down my throat.
"That one's a little too personal to talk about at the moment," Kyle grunted.
The rest of the game was relatively quiet. I guess I should have expected that considering Kyle's confession about being attracted to me and all. He decided to end the game quickly and sunk the Eight Ball within minutes of the end of the conversation.
Plopping down in a stool next to me Kyle and I drank in silence. The rest of the bar danced around us, blissfully unaware of the darker side of the world that we lived in. At times I wished I could just be a normal girl who worried about boys and how much she weighed. I can't say that there is something that makes me wish otherwise, I just move those thoughts to the back of my head.
"Changing the subject," Kyle said abruptly, "with the Friends of Humanity on the rise we need you to move up the plans of the operation. Get to know the Cullen's personally. We need to know who they are and what they can do."
"And just how am I going to accomplish this?" I muttered.
Kyle's smirk was a little too disturbing for my tastes.