Alright, I know I kept you guys waiting so here is the next chapter. It's a short one compared to my other chapters but to make up for it I will post another chapter this time next week instead of waiting two weeks. This chapter was originally gonna be huge but by the time I got done with the whole thing I realized I needed to separate it into two chapters.

Chapter 17

Tanya's POV

Almost three weeks had past before I was able to get a hold of Irena again after 'the incident.' I was at a complete loss as to why things escalated so quickly. Sure things started off a bit rocky between the family and Laurent, but who could blame us. For months we watched our sister in complete despair over the absence of her mate, only to have him discovered with another female. We all had our suspicions about his story of how he sired Sophie, but when we finally met her and got to know her we found are insecurities unfounded. It was clear from the start that Sophie had no romantic connection to him so we accepted his concept of starting a family with Irena. But Eleazer was more difficult to convince and even though he spent more time with Sophie than almost any of the rest of us, he just couldn't shake the feeling that Laurent was hiding something.

Without any proof, Eleazar remained quiet about his concern until he finally saw something to confront Laurent with. He claimed to have seen multiple bit marks on Sophie's arm when her cuff slipped. He told us she tried to conceal them from him but she was already too late. The worse part of Eleazer's story was how she had pleaded with him to just forget about seeing them and to leave it alone. Eleazer said he was shocked by her remarks but that she wouldn't tell him the truth and when he pushed for the truth further she took off to find Laurent. Of course Laurent threw a huge French fit insinuating that Eleazer was trying to steal his daughter for her powers and within minutes he had grabbed Irena and taken off with Sophie close behind.

Of course, I walked in at the tail end of everything so I didn't know what the hell to make of it. Even once Eleazer detailed exactly what happened to all of us we couldn't seem to understand. Clearly, some part of Laurent's story about Sophie was false. Why would she have other bit marks? And now that we know she has other bite marks, why is her change so different and why would she need to hide them? Kate, Carmen, Eleazer and I went around in circles for days trying to riddle out something that would make sense. After talking the situation to death practically, we had come to a few conclusions. First, Laurent had clearly lied about Sophie's past and/or change. Two, whatever Sophie was hiding had to involve Laurent or he was helping her in some way which was why she was with him. And lastly, we had all become attached to Sophie and even though she was hiding something we weren't ready to give up on her.

I for one could not stand having our family live apart and when Irena left to look for Laurent in the first place I had missed her greatly. Now I was determined to convince her to come back with my niece and Laurent too I guess, to make this right. Sophie was part of this family now and if there are parts of her past that she would rather not talk about, it wasn't my place to force her. She had always been so reserved even when I first met her. She was never the gossiping type like Irena or myself and she had even told us that she was deeply hurt in her past, but would not go into details. We had all come to love her and she seemed happy with us. This was her home now, so over the course of three weeks I called Irena every hour. I left voicemail after voicemail until her message box was full and the others helped me, she was bound to answer sooner or later.

That first conversation we had was awkward, Irena said Laurent was still mad and that they had been fighting too. Irena missed us, but she would never leave Laurent so I made her a deal. I promised that we as a family would apologize to Laurent for our behavior and agreed not to pry into the past as long as they promised to return with Sophie. Irena was please with what I had to offer and she said she would do her best to convince him we could all be civil with each other. She asked me to tell everyone that she missed them and she would call me again soon. Less than a week later, Irena called me with good news. Laurent agreed to return on a trial basis, but then she told me that Sophie was not with them. She explained that after they left Denali she had opted to take off while she and Laurent talked but that she had not returned yet. I couldn't believe that they had let her go off somewhere on her own for so long. Irena said that as soon as they got a hold of Sophie they would make plans to return immediately.

Ten days later however, there was no sign of Irena, Laurent or Sophie. I had resulted to pacing back and forth across the living room when Kate came in.

"It's been too long Tanya, why haven't we heard anything?" she said.

"I know, I don't understand it either. Irena was so giddy on the phone when she said they were going to make plans to return immediately, I honestly thought she would have been here by now or at least have called." Carmen and Eleazer decided to make an appearance at that point.

"I just tried calling her and got voicemail" Kate said.

"I tried calling Sophie the last couple days but it goes right to voicemail" Eleazer said. "Tanya, I am getting a bad feeling about this."

Honestly, so was I and I didn't like it. "Okay so what do we know? When they left here do we think they would go all the way back to France?"

"Well, you said she was making plans to return quickly, don't you think she would have mentioned being on the other side of the world then?" Kate asked.

"Your right, there is no way they would have went that far. But where could they have gone then?"

"Wait, Sophie once talked about staying in Wisconsin in an abandoned hotel or something, before she lived in France with Laurent" Eleazer said with enthusiasm.

"That's right! Northern Wisconsin I believe she said even, we could start there" Carmen beamed.

Five hours later the four of us boarded a plane. We had timed it so we would be landing in Wausau, Wisconsin just as the sun was setting. From there we decided it would be best to travel by foot seeing as our sense of smell would be hindered if we drove. Once we were on the ground Kate used her phone to search for abandoned and foreclosed hotels further north on the internet. We had already checked three places Kate had come up with when we caught the scent of other vampires and the trail was fresh, maybe a day or two old. Eleazer stopped immediately and we paused while he took in our surroundings. They were not vampires we knew, but somehow I thought one of the scents seemed familiar.

"We need to be cautious. There are five of them" he said. The trail from the other vampires was headed in the same direction as went continued to the next location Kate had researched. Then the wind shifted, and the strong scent of smoke hung in the air. I turned to look at Eleazer as I started to pick up old trails from Laurent and Irena and my insides started to scream as I ran faster. We all broke through the trees at the same time to see what was probably once a large structure smoldering in ruins. Only stray pieces of metal were still standing; where as everything else had turned to ash. Frozen in shock looking at the building, my mind was in a frenzy trying to decide what this might mean. I hardly noticed as Eleazer quickly ran the perimeter trying to gather as much information as he could. Kate grabbed onto me and we stepped close to what used to be the hotel we had been searching for.

"I can smell them, they were here. There trails go in and out of that…" Kate's voice cracked as she pointed to what was left of the hotel. Moments later Eleazer returned and took Carmen's hand.

"Irena and Laurent's trails are the oldest, their freshest trail does not leave the hotel. Sophie wasn't here though her trail comes after the other coven left heading west. She must have gotten here a few hours too late, but it looks like she went after them. Tanya…?" Elezear said. I turned to him slowly not wanting to hear what he was going to say just yet. "I believe Laurent and Irena were destroyed" he said. I let myself sink to the ground as I let all this information sink in. My sister was gone…destroyed by another coven, but why would anyone want to hurt her? No, this had to be because of him. I have been with Irena and Kate all our lives and we have never made enemies that would do something like this. But Sophie was still alive, and now she had lost her family again. I wasn't going to lose her too, not after we were about to get her back. I heard Kate and Carmen sobbing as I got to my feet.

"Sophie will need our help" I said to them. "We must avenge our sister and then we will have time to mourn" I said sadly. Kate looked up at me nodding and I turned to Eleazer. "We should go there isn't any time to waste." I sliced threw the night swiftly, as my chest ached with the loss of my sister. I couldn't stop thinking about what Irena's last moment would have been like. My mind could not stop from picturing the worst case scenario. Would Sophie be strong enough to take down five vampires when she was still part human herself? Of course she was strong; Kate and I even helped train her with Eleazer. I knew she could handle this…as long as she didn't have one of her attacks this would be a piece of cake for her. I breathed in Sophie's scent as we followed her trail using it as motivation to get to her as quickly as possible.

But something was nagging at me. Beyond Sophie's scent I could smell the enemy coven and there had to be a reason something smelled familiar. Suddenly, it struck me, I had kept picturing vampires I had met with this scent, but it wasn't someone I had met. This was the scent of a vampire I had smelled on Laurent when he first came to us. When he first arrived he explained that he had been in a coven with two others. One of which the Cullen's had destroyed and Laurent had abandoned his coven because he didn't want to take on the Cullen's. Victoria was her name; she must have come back for his traitorous behavior. I revealed my theory to the others who agreed with my assumption, but then I realized that when the Cullen's had fought with the remaining members of Laurent's coven they said the female possessed a gift. In fact, Carlisle said she had had an uncanny ability to escape, which was why in the end they were not able to destroy her along with her mate.

I didn't know how long I had been lost in my thoughts, blindly following Sophie's scent when I realized we were headed straight for Washington. Eleazer seemed to figure this out about the same time I did and we stopped to discuss it. "I was thinking and I think we need to call the Cullen's. When they fought with Laurent's old coven they said the female had an uncanny ability to escape. She managed to get away from all seven of them."

"I agree. We are headed right for Cullen territory and they might be able to help us or at least know where she might be going" Eleazer said. Everyone looked to me then and I knew they were silently pleading to me to be the one to call.

"Okay, I will call them" I said shakily. I pulled my phone from my pocket and pressed the speed dial.

"Hello? Tanya?" Carlisle asked as I took an unnecessary moment to swallow.

"Carlisle…I have some troubling news" I said slowly.

"Whatever has happened Tanya we are here for you" he said lovingly.

"It's Irena…she and Laurent have been…lost. We believe another coven has destroyed them, we think it was Victoria."

"Victoria…" he said with such hate.

"There is more…we are following her trail and its headed straight for Washington, we were hoping you could tell us anything you know about her or where she might be going Carlisle."

"I am so sorry for your loss, Tanya. Irena will be greatly missed. I can't tell you much about her, but my first thought is that if she is heading toward Washington that she would be coming after us now that she has killed Laurent. I would like to assist you but my family and I are spread out right now. Edward, came to his senses and went back for Bella only to find her missing and now he, Alice and Jasper are searching for her. Last I heard Alice had a vision that took them overseas. Esme and I are trying to get a hold of Emmet and Rosalie but they are on an extended hunting trip and we haven't been able to reach them."

My head swirled with this information. Carlisle thought that she would be after them, but they were all on the east coast. Now as we headed west after Irena's killers we had picked up on their original trail out to Wisconsin. But if they were coming from Washington, then they knew the Cullen's weren't there, so they couldn't be after the Cullen's. Plus there were only five members of Victoria's coven now, so the Cullen's would still have out number them and surely she would have figured out they had some gifts of their own when she originally fought them. Okay, so Victoria is mad Laurent betrayed her and killed him for it. It made sense that she would come for the Cullen's next but she knew they weren't in Washington. Then who else would she be after? Then something else clicked, Victoria's mate was killed because of Edward's human mate and Carlisle just said she was missing.

"Carlisle, how long has Bella been missing?"

"We only found out she was missing rather recently, but Edward found out she disappeared in December."

I gasped suddenly.

"Tanya, are you alright?" Carlisle asked.

Laurent had left Irena the first week in December, the same month Bella disappeared. Laurent had been part of a coven that decided to take on all of the Cullen's even though they were out numbered to get to Bella. Carlisle told me she had even been bitten but Edward was able to suck out the venom in time before she started to change. That would explain the extra bit marks Sophie would have and she had even mentioned to me her other family abandoned her. The Cullen's left Forks because Edward thought they were putting her in danger. If Sophie was truly Bella then I knew why she had lied about who she was, because she knew if we found out we would tell the Cullen's.

"Carlisle, they have a daughter" I said in a rush. "Laurent and Irena have a daughter and we think she went after her parent's killers. We are following her trail and its leading us right towards Forks. Laurent left in December for months and when he came back he had Sophie." There was silence on the other end of the phone. "I think we are both looking for the same person…"

"Bella is 5'5" slender build, about 18 years old with long brown hair, she would have a scar on her right forearm" Carlisle said quickly.

"It's her…it's Sophie" I told him.

Sorry, for the shortness, but like I said I will make up for it. I will try to get chapters out every two weeks, but it has been increasingly difficult. Please have patience with me, I am getting married in less than three months and I am really excited, but I have less time then I used to. I hope you don't mind if I take more time to write than normal to make sure the quality of my story is still up to par. Please review, I always love to hear what readers think will happen next! Thanks!