4. Lost and Found

Edward, Emmett, Bella and the Pack –

It had been a slow day/week/month for E and E PIs. The economy wasn't helping their situation in anyway and Edward and Emmett were bored. It was the kind of boredom that would shut a business down, simply because no one cared anymore. But they stayed at their posts diligently because there was hardly anything else to do. It was looking to be another wasted and unproductive day until the phone started ringing.

Emmett snapped furiously at Edward, signaling him to start taking notes. Edward produced a notebook out of his jean pocket. When he saw that Edward was ready, Emmett picked up the phone.

"E and E Private Investigators, this is Emmett." He tried to act nonchalant but he and Edward were both very releaved to finally get a case.

"Hi…uh," A nervous voice came onto the line; obviously a woman, "I called the police to file a missing persons report but they said they could only inform the public to keep a look out." She answered.

Edward's hand grazed over the paper, leaving in its trial, a perfect copy of everything that she had said.

"But they did suggest I hire a private investigator." She added.

Edward mumbled, still taking notes.

"I'm glad they did. But do you what us to find this missing person or...?" Emmett asked, with a smile in his voice.

"Yeah. I mean yes! Uh…I suppose you need my information, or something?" The woman on the phone was obviously not used to this kind of arrangement and was speaking so fast, Edward's hand was having trouble keeping up with her excited pace.

Emmett chuckled at her apprehension. He leaned back in his chair, gaining confidence.

"Yes. Yes, we do."

"Oh! Um, my name is Bella…Isabella Swan and my cousin, the guy whose I filed that report for, is Michael Corvin. I was going meet him at his apartment, to help him move, after he got off work early, but he never came…" Bella's voice ended on a grim, final note.

Edward stopped writing and Emmett froze in the back of his chair. There was an ominous feeling enveloping all three of them. Like they all knew that whatever happened to Michael was so heinous, none of them wanted to find out the whole truth. No one spoke for quite a while.

Bella broke the dread-filled silence.

"So can you guys help me?" Her voice was almost a whisper.

Emmett snapped out his fear and shook off any feeling of foreboding. The two brothers looked at each other and nodded in agreement. Emmett turned back to the phone but kept his eyes locked with Edward's.

"Yes, I believe we can." He spoke confidently. But the sinister premonition was lingering everywhere.

"Um, come down to our office, we'll get started there."

Emmett put down the hand set. This day was getting worse when it initially seemed to be a good one.

"What do you think we should do?" asked Edward. Edward did not want anything to do with this Bella Swan. Or this Michael. But Emmett was the more rational of the two and thought Edward was simply superstitious. He was silent for a while, thinking. When he finally made his decision, Edward knew his answer before it had come off his brother's tongue.

"I think we should start by checking out this guy's place. Then go from there."

Edward nodded.

Within ten minutes of getting off the phone with Bella, there was a knock at their door. Edward went up to get it. Emmett was still sitting in his chair, wondering how they should really go about this one. Meanwhile, Edward was thinking whether or not he should even open the door. But when he did, he was speechless.

Before his eyes, there was a woman in her mid-twenties standing, drenched head-to-toe. She had dark hair, or maybe that was just the rain, and the palest skin he'd ever seen, contrasting perfectly with her dark hair. She was a masterpiece in his eyes. But Edward was very good at hiding his true feelings.

"Please, come in." He said without a hint of awe or even tension in his voice.

She dutifully went in their small office. Edward was suddenly conscious of the mold in the ceiling and the drab feeling you got from being here for more than three minutes. She sat down and clutched her purse on her water-logged lap. Emmett turned around to greet her with his trade-mark smile. It was a comforting smile and Bella felt at ease for the first time since Michael didn't show up at his place.

Emmett relaxed easily back into his chair while Edward made himself comfortable by leaning against the wall adjacent to Bella.

"Shall we get started right away?" Emmett started. Edward looked at him furiously and when he shrugged with a confused look on his face, Edward rolled his eyes and then put on his most hospitable face and approached Bella- who hadn't noticed this exchange at all because she was digging through her purse- and proceeded to stand in front of her, trying to get her attention. But she kept digging through her purse for something. Edward cleared his throat. Bella's head shot up,

"Oh, sorry! What were you saying?"

Emmett chuckled. Edward's face grew taunt at his brother's chortle. But Edward put the smile back on and said,

"Nothing, I was just wondering if I could take your coat."

"Yes! Thank you! Here." She took the sloshing brown coat off and delicately handed it to Edward.

"Sorry, it's raining outside." Her face was apologetic and incredibly embarrassed. Her face turned two shades of red. Edward thought that the added color just made her even more beautiful. He could hardly turn away but managed to compose himself before Emmett noticed.

As Edward hung Bella's coat up, she finally calmed into the old but comfortable chair.

Emmett gave another one of his trade-mark smiles and asked her,

"What were you digging for in your purse?"

Her blush deepened another shade of red.

"Uh, my keys… I must have left them back at his place."

Both Emmett and Edward could find the humor in that situation. But Bella looked downcast because of this development.

"I guess I'll have to go back to his place and get them." She stated almost apologetically.

"You have a key to his place?" Emmett wondered.

"Yeah, he loaned me one to get into his place if he wasn't there. And he wasn't…" That feeling of persistent dread overcame them once again. All three merely passed it off as anxiety or anxiousness, again. The almost supernatural sensation was becoming even easier to rationalize every time it descended upon them. This time they recoiled even faster from it than before. It was hardly noticeable as they brushed it off. But instead of disappearing completely like last time, it lingered within their very core. It refused to recede to the back of their minds and be temporarily forgotten.

Emmett was the one who broke the silence this time.

"Do you mind if we can come along?"

Bella swallowed and nodded, using the majority of his upper body to emphasize that point.

"Yeah, yeah, that'd be fine."

Emmett grinned again and motioned to the door. "Shall we go?"

No one really wanted to.

When they arrived at his place, they immediately noticed some suspicious figures hanging around the street that Bella said he normally took to the hospital and back. They were wearing dark hoodies but they weren't necessarily out of place. So they didn't pay much attention to them.

His actual apartment was sparsely furnished and looked to have a fine layer of dust over it.

"Residents don't have much of life outside of the hospital. And he was going to move to a flat closer to it." Bella explained.

Edward started poking around the numerous books and texts that Michael had scattered around his place.

"Jesus, these things are heavy!" Emmett exclaimed, trying to pick one up. He dropped it back down on Michael's largest desk with a THUD!

"Hey, Em, we don't want to destroy his property while were at it." Edward warned.

But Emmett wasn't listening to his brother anymore. He was looking through any documents that might prove useful for any reason at all. But they were both effectively able to find nothing at all.

With discouraged looks on their faces, they approached Bella.

"I'm sorry, Ms Swan, but we were unable to find any reason to why Michael disappeared."

Bella looked disappointed and the feeling growing within all of them did nothing to give them any kind of hope. Bella just nodded at them and said,

"It's okay, I'll let you guys know if anything else turns up." Bella let a broken sigh escape her lips.

"How much do I owe you guys?"

Edward and Emmett exchanged looks. Edward looked back towards Bella.

"Uh, this one's on us. We didn't find anything so it's free." said Edward.

Emmett hummed in agreement.

"Oh, okay. I'll just go home then." Bella's voice sounded distant and far away.

"Alright, where do you live? We'll drive you." Emmett offered.

"No, I live nearby. I'll walk." Edward and Emmett looked at her in surprise.

"You mean you walked to our office?"

Bella laughed weakly. "Of course not! I took the bus."

Edward and Emmett stared at her as she quietly gathered her belongings and made her way home.

The two brothers left and as they made their way back to their car, they noticed the same hoodlums were hanging around their car now. There were about four of them. One was absolutely huge and had dark black hair, with a harsh complexion, another one was actually a she and looked to have bi-passed the whole sweet-girl phase, the smallest looked to be the most dangerous and the other one stood there; waiting for a fight. They all looked related and Edward had no doubt in his mind that they considered each other family, even if it wasn't by blood.

Emmett stiffened, trying to put on the semblance that he was larger than he really was. Emmett was really quite muscular and Edward knew how to handle himself in a fight, but the hoodlums weren't intimidated at all. They actually seemed to get excited and started to move towards the advancing duo.

Emmett didn't want to fight and tried just to push through them, but they pushed right back.

Hard.

Edward watched with disbelief as the only female hoodlum grabbed Emmett by the collar and threw him up in the air. Emmett had the wind knocked out of him as he hit the pavement directly on his back. He gasped but nothing was going into his lungs. Edward just stood by in disbelief.

He slowly turned to the female and whispered,

"That's not possible."

She smiled.

"There's a lot you humans find impossible." Her voice was almost as dangerous as she was.

The rest of the gang flashed Edward the most dangerous looking smiles he'd ever seen. He could only tilt his head in confusion. But as soon as Emmett got a hold of his breath, he was on his feet, swearing and picking himself up. Out of anger and a little bit of a hurt ego, he threw himself at the female that had humiliated him so terribly. Another male in the group thrust his hand out, effectively stopping Emmett in his tracks.

Edward gasped. Emmett snapped his head back towards his brother.

"You think their tough, too? Ah, come on! Help me get the… shit…" he started but was distracted by the same thing Edward was.

The hoodlums' eyes had turned a disturbing black where their whites should have been and where their irises were; only a murky blue haze remained.

"What the fuck?" Emmett breathed.

All four of them widened their grins.

Edward gasped again. Their teeth were all canine-like and disturbingly sharp.

"Are you in some kind of cult?" demanded a now alarmed Emmett.

Instead of giving another cryptic answer, the hoodlums burst out laughing. The sound of it reverberated within Edward's and Emmett's ear drums and reminded them of a pack of blood-thirsty hyenas.

Both brothers scrambled back from the hoodlums; now terrified. But they were suddenly surrounded. The smiles on the hoodlums faces were now gone. Their new expression just reinforced their blood-thirsty appearance. The largest one grabbed Emmett and started…sniffing him. Emmett began hyperventilating.

Then the large man-thing threw him back down and let another smirk break out on his face. The rest of the gang started cackling and their eyes reverted back to a more human look. But the animalistic nature was not entirely gone from them. The female sauntered over to Edward and breathed in his ear,

"Don't look for Michael. He'll be back when he's ready."

She patted him on his cheek, smirked and walked over to the largest man-thing and turned her back to the stunned brothers. She looked back and murmured,

"Come on, Sam. I think they got the message." Sam (apparently) snorted and wrapped his arm around the woman-thing and three of them walked away without looking back. The only one who did was the one who looked like he wanted a fight. He looked disappointed.
It took Emmett and Edward quite a while to be able to breath normally again. But when they did, Emmett spoke somberly,

"Ed…what the fuck just happened?"

Edward didn't have a clue. But he knew that finding this Michael was going to thrust them into something far larger than a simple gangbang.

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Michael was hurled into a strange and unfamiliar world. He found himself, kneeling, chained to a stone floor. Michael was starting to get really tired of being chained to things. But in this reality (he knew it was real) he did nothing to fight them. He tried but his arms refused to even twitch, much less break out of the cold metal.

But, suddenly, all of his senses were overtaken by a pain so horrible on his back that he thought it was broken. It was as if someone accidentally dumped a hot liquid on his back and then decided to lacerate the blisters and rub alcohol into the wounds. And yet, he didn't scream or move one fiber of his body. He was starting to wonder if this all was a dream. It certainly didn't feel like one to Michael. The pain was so real and every sense of his was on fire.

Another swish behind him warned him of another crippling blow. His body did nothing to prepare for it and because of that, when the blow actually hit, his eyes started to water. He took every one of the blows in succession without letting a single syllable escape his throat. Even when blood poured onto his calves and pooled at his feet, he held every sensation in his breast.

Scream body! Just Scream! He yelled internally. But nothing would come out of his mouth. And the lashes kept coming and coming, mercilessly tearing flesh from his back, leaving cutting lacerations everywhere on his back and basically, his entire rear half. He felt as though the lashes would never stop raining down upon him.

Then they stopped. Michael breathed a sign of relief. But, he could only blow it right out into an older man's face when he was yanked by his hair to meet a man who was looking at him with a disgusted look on his face. The pain from his scalp was only an echo compared to what he had just endured. He stared into the man's unnaturally blue eyes and could hardly care when the man threw his head down onto the stone floor.

"Hideous creature. Sonja, prepare the Death Dealers! There is a pack of wolves right outside our door!"

Death Dealers? This man was commanding the Death Dealers? Michael was starting to like Lucien a lot more and was starting to care less and less for the man he saw gunned down if this was his commander. But he couldn't hate the Death Dealers. For some incomprehensible reason, he wanted to.

That name Sonja…

It felt beautiful and … dreadful.

Who was Sonja? Michael asked himself.

"And kill this miserable dog!" yelled the strange man, who was clearly talking about Michael.

What? What the fuck have I done to you? Michael wanted to scream but his lips were sealed.

Okay, Death Dealers = bad. Michael cleared that up matter in his head and no longer felt any compassion towards the supposed Death Dealer in the clearing.

Get up! Get out! RUN AWAY! He kept on screaming within himself. But it was so futile.

His body was a foreign object and refused to react to his will. He heard footsteps shuffling behind him and he continued to scream at himself without any reaction from his body at all. He felt chained to something colder and even stronger than steel or the iron currently shackling him. Like ice had invaded his heart and frozen him in place.

Until a stirring inside him brought him to his feet. It made his heart feel again, both emotionally and physically. It started to beat uncontrollably.

The name Sonja…it seemed to give him strength.

Who was this Sonja?

There was a swishing through the air and finally, Michael's body actually did something. But when he saw what had happened, he was petrified. His eyes were finally able to focus on his own hand snapping the neck of, what he thought to be, one of those Death Dealers. In that burst of muscle reaction, he had broke out of those huge chains and stopped the executioner from slicing his neck open. Incredibly disturbed, he looked for an exit sign. He then flew through the air, of this … prison (Michael hadn't gotten a good look of it; he was to busy face down in the ground) and found his own exit by smashing through a one of the many ornate windows surrounding other captives he had been apparently been rooming with.

Trying to spruce the place up, huh… Michael thought. Not working.

Then Michael's blood ran cold, for the second time tonight. However, this time it was because of a completely different reason.

As he was smashing through the window, he caught his reflection. The last thing he saw was the deepest pair of green eyes he'd ever known.

Michael's eyes were brown.

Michael jerked back into a time he was familiar with and nearly had a hernia when he realized he was covered in dust and his shoulders were being held by strong hands.

His eyes adjusted to the bleakness of a dark building. Michael saw a room, with medical instruments covering carts and tables and a broken chair, through a hole in a wall that he had probably made. Glimmers of memory started to return to him and he remembered the chair and his jaw and then the strange blood.

"What the hell just happened?" Michael found himself asking.

Lucien let go of his harsh grip on Michael's shoulders and walked out in front of Michael's face, hands folded behind his back. He turned around and looked intently at Michael. A strange glint in Lucien's eyes unnerved Michael, but he made no effort to move, so neither did Michael.

"Does your face hurt?" He asked after a while of just studying Michael.

Michael's brow furrowed but he answered,

"No, why?" Then memory flooded at him, instead of just shining glimmers into his eyes.

Lucien drew up his mouth in a knowing smile and ducked through the hole that looked more Michael shaped the more Michael studied it.

"I'm sorry I had to react the way I did. But time is so short and having a human on our hands is just too stressful for the moment." He paused, looking at the broken chair, that Michael remembered so clearly now.

"So, obviously, you're no longer human." Lucien said quite bluntly.

Michael tested his jaw out, and sure enough, it didn't hurt at all. Lucien was prepared for another outburst from Michael, but this time, he showed no indication of retaliation.

However, Michael wanted answers. But he had calmed down enough to be diplomatic about gaining them. Lucien moved over to the tables lining the room and started to examining the instruments on them.

"Can you answer me some questions then?" Michael wondered.

"Of course, what would you like to know?" Lucien responded, his voice as bland as ever, never once taking his eyes off the shiny and not quite sanitary mechanisms.

"What am I now? What will I become?" Michael asked.

Lucien hummed.

"You have become a Lycan, the brethren to William, the feral. What you will become is completely up to you." Lucien turned back to Michael.

"I would like you become one of my followers; part of my horde, since you are now a Lycan, but as I've said, that's entirely up to you."

Michael pondered this; It was just a normal day and all of a sudden he witnesses a murder and then he's infected with…

"Lycan, you mean lycanthrope?" Michael wondered aloud.

Lucien's eyes brightened and he didn't speak for a while. He roamed around the tables with his hands.

"Yes…" He stated finally.

"Okay so you're, I'm, we're…werewolves?"

"Yes…"

Michael was growing increasingly exhausted from everything. But he still had one more question.

"Who's Sonja?"

Lucien's demeanor suddenly changed. The ambivalent nature to which Lucien answered Michael's questions was gone. His body tensed and he stood completely still for at least ten seconds. Then he seized a scalpel on the table and was instantly pressuring Michael's throat with it.

"How do you know about her?" He hissed into Michael's ear.

Michael tried to bring air into his lungs without having his throat slit open.

"I don't know! I was in this dungeon and then this one old guy said he was going to kill me but then I jumped out the window!" He rushed out of his mouth.

Lucien held the scalpel still for a good minute. But to either man, it was as long as forty days.

Then Lucien swooned up to his feet and threw the blade into the wall beside Michael.

Michael sucked in a torrent of breath as it landed nearly a centimeter from his face. Lucien no longer took any mind to Michael, but he felt the need to answer the new-born's last question. Both for himself and Michael. He grasped the mass of hair he had acquired over the centuries and slowly ran his fingers through it as best he could; collecting his thoughts.

"She is an Elder, and the daughter to the "old guy" that told his guard to kill me."

Michael started at Lucien, confused. Lucien saw this and continued,

"That was not some vision you had. That was a memory from my life, transferred to you when I injected my blood into you. We don't quite know why this happens, but as you can attest to, it does.

"That was the night where I escaped from the Coven, the Death Dealers as you know them to be. That was the night I left her. The night I left the one I can not love. The one I do love."

Michael gawked at the Lycan before him; awed. Something about this man just drew people to him, and Lucien was good enough not to abuse this. Michael was no exception and a feeling of devotion was settling into his mind, ever so comfortably.

Lucien straightened his posture and turned around to Michael. The ambivalent demeanor had returned to him.

"So, will you follow me?" he asked simply.

Michael looked around him and to his possible future. There was no way to regain his humanity but this Lucien fellow had retained his civility and seemingly thrived under these austere conditions.

The options for Michael were many, but the outcomes were few and of those, even fewer actually allowed for Michael to have a less-than-horrific end.

So he chose one he thought would give him an actual shot at this life.

"Sure…" He breathed, sealing his fate.

Somewhere, there lay an end for Michael. Somewhere, there lay an end for one woman to lead him there. For it was her's as well.