"I know what I'm capable of; I am a soldier now, a warrior. I am someone to fear, not hunt."

~Pittacus Lore, The Rise of Nine~

Chapter Four: Let's Get This Show On The Road

"Will you eat before you go?"

Leah doesn't turn to the noise but she shakes her head. She has little appetite, not for food anyway. There is a thread of tension in the room. Wu is worried; possibly for her but more likely for what will happen to them if she fails.

"I'll be back in time for breakfast," she says, giving him a wan smile. She shouldn't be complacent but the fire in the gut tells her it's true. It's not her time to die tonight, that honour belongs to someone else.

"Remember our lessons," Wu says, his voice soft but underneath it she can just make out a slight begging tone. Please don't die on us, it's saying. She feels sure that is one request that will be granted tonight.

Wu opens his mouth to say something else but decides against it. With one last nod, he backs out of the room, leaving Leah to think about her mission, about her destiny. She doesn't know why they're so antsy. This is what she stayed for, what they asked her to do. This is in her blood.

Killing bloodsuckers is what she does and now, thanks to them, she's much more better equipped to do so. She turns her head back, hair blowing softly around her face. From her perch, she can see the villages sprawled out at the bottom of the mountains. Two women have died in the last three days, blood drained from their bodies, left to rot by a leech who doesn't know any better or who doesn't think anyone will care.

Well, she cares and before the night is over, he'll learn his lesson.

...

The vampire goes crazy trying to place the scent. It's not so much the smell that sends him into a panic but that he doesn't know what kind of creature it belongs to. Leah likes to believe that she smells like a predator to him but even if he doesn't make that connection now, he soon will when she's tearing the marble flesh from his bones.

She stalks him down the side street, in human form, until he realises that he's being tracked and breaks into a sprint. Leah doesn't even bother running after him. She's already got his scent. Even if he looks around, suspicion won't fall on her. Never in his wildest dreams would he imagine that the pretty girl across the street is going to be the death of him. But that's the problem with these leeches. They've got no imagination.

He stops in an alley. Leah glances up from the wall where she is perched, behind a stack of crates, to see clothes hanging from railings. She reconsiders her tactics. There's no way she can phase here. The risk that someone might see her from the window is too high, but that's okay. She's learned ways around that.

"I know you're there," the leech spits, his English mangled by a thick European accent that Leah can't exactly place. "Come out!" he hisses. Leah smiles at the note of fear underneath the bravado. He's going to play it brave and cocky, and that makes it worth her while.

She drops down from the wall and walks slowly towards him, hips swinging. It seems out of place but she notes with some happiness the feel of her hair resting on her shoulders. It's always been her pride and joy and it physically hurt when she had to cut it. Now, she's doing things on her own terms.

The leech looks confused, his nose wrinkles as he instinctively backs away from the smell. He grins, more than a hint of relief in his eyes, as he takes in the girl in front of him. Leah can almost see herself through his eyes. Young, soft and small. Smaller than him anyway. She's...appetizing and he thinks this is going to be a cakewalk. She wait until after it's done to laugh about that.

"Bitch," he spits, still leering at her. "I've eaten quite a few homeless people in my time but you smell worse than any of them. But hey," he says, shrugging his shoulders. "I'm hungry...and beggars can't be choosers."

Leah smiles and it throws him off balance a little. His look is questioning-questioning her sanity if anything-and he doesn't move as she walks closer. She can feel the pulsing in her gums with each step, her straight white teeth shift into points. They break through the skin on her bottom lip but she keeps her mouth closed. No way she's gonna reveal her ace...not just yet.

She moves her hands behind her back and looks up at him-all coy and inviting. Her fingertips twist painfully, sharp claws breaking through skin. The tendons in her arms tremble and she inhales slowly against the searing pain. There's a price to pay for doing it this way but it's almost worth it to see the look on the leech's face when he gets his ass torn up by a human.

"Oh, I understand now," the leech says, sounding more than a little dazed. "You want to play games." He moves forward, his expression threatening. "Except, I'm a man who always wins and your odds don't look too good."

He pounces, coming at her like a bullet. She waits until the very last moment before she dodges his attack and spins around him. Her mouth finds the back of his neck, long canines tearing at his flesh before he can even raise a hand to her. She pulls him back into the shadows, her deformed jaw still clasped around his neck and she works at the skin, ripping away at the harder top layer until it gives way to the softer flesh underneath. He fights of course but it does him no good. Every move he makes works against him, sending her teeth deeper into his neck.

"How do you like those odds?" she whispers, her voice thick and low. Then she puts one foot in the small of his back, grabs his hair and pulls. His head comes off with a sharp, tearing sound, eyes still blinking as she lets it fall to the ground. She glances up at the windows. Anyone watching would think they'd just witnessed a heavy make out session or at the worst, a murder but that's easily overlooked in this part of town.

"Bitch," she growls as she kicks at the flailing vampire corpse. She looks around for something to restrain his arms and then kicks him down again as his headless body tries to scramble to his feet. He goes over easy, weakened by the loss of his most vital body part. Leah watches him as she bends a steel bar over her knee, then she grabs his wrists together and loops it over his arms. It won't hold forever but it'll last longer now that his strength is near depleted.

Now she just has to figure out how she's going to get this motherfucker out of here.

...

The monks stare wide eyed as she drags the leech into the temple, but whatever. She's in no mood for hugs and kisses. To avoid suspicion and actually make it up the mountain, she had to abandon the stolen car she used to get him out of town and drag at least 500 pounds of moving stone up the steepest mountain she's ever seen.

She's not particularly happy right now. She dumps the leech at their feet and heads off towards her room. She's done her part. They can take care of the rest.

...

Leah doesn't sleep well that night. She's haunted by memories. The initial excitement of her success tonight quickly gives way to anger as she remembers how her pack treated her. All of them equating her lack of brawn and muscle to innate weakness. She remembers how she was never allowed to train with Jasper, how angry everybody had been when she tried to do her duty and take down a leech only for Jacob to have to jump in. What a great fucking tragedy it was. The honorable Jacob Black having to rescue the bitch nobody gave a shit about. She never mentioned that it was her job to put her life on the line trying to protect humans from leeches. That would have made way too much sense for their tiny brains. She took great pains not to even think about the fact that they were supposed to be a collective unit-and protecting each other was part and parcel.

No, she was just a fucking woman who stepped out of line and tried to do the man's work and her cost was a label as cocky and reckless while Jacob took home the prize of being strong and brave for doing the exact same thing-their duty.

Hell, she could go back there right now-wiser and stronger than all of them and Sam would still pit her against the most helpless leech, taking orders from a child who was at least four wolves down from her in the timeline of phasing. If it had ever been a matter of strength and wisdom, she'd have made fucking Alpha by now but it never was. It was all about whose balls were bigger and so she was out of the game before she even began to play.

She thought she had found her place at Jacob's side, that she earned her role as Beta. Despite her sneaking suspicion that he'd only offered her the job to placate her, she'd convinced herself that she was just being paranoid-that he must have really believed she was the best option for his second. She held her palms out and let him heap all the shit and responsibility that he didn't want to deal with right onto her...only for him to decide that it wasn't enough. All her hard work wasn't enough and suddenly she found herself right back where she began. Under Sam's thumb and in his mind.

"Fucking bastards," she mutters to herself, turning over in an attempt to clear her mind and get some sleep. The night air was fresh and dewy, blowing in from her open window. She tries one of the meditation techniques the monks had taught her. Imagined the mist seeping into her brain, pulling her into the world of dreams-nature's best sedative-but it did no good. She was still far too wired and to make things worse, the lack of sleep was beginning to get to her.

This had been her third night of restlessness and even she had a breaking point.

...