Author's Notes: Many thanks to reviewers la-la-la-45, adptt12, emma, and KMT06055!!! and to the latter, yay for North and South - that John Thornton gives Mr. Darcy a run for his money! *fans self*


Disclaimer: The Twilight saga and all characters therein are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. No profit is being made from this fanfiction and no copyright infringement is intended.


Chapter Seven

Vanished

The snow drifted down in thick, heavy clumps, blanketing the ground with pure glistening sparkles. It looked like vampire skin under the moonlight. It was the first major snowfall of the year, and Bella was delighted, because Charlie, Sue, Seth, and Leah would be arriving tomorrow for Christmas. It was mid-December already and the last day of school before the holiday.

I opened the refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of chimpanzee blood and popped it in the microwave. That one had been Jacob's idea. After an unfortunate incident a few years ago, when we were visiting the Denalis in Alaska, Jasper had very nearly lost it in public when a young child slipped on a patch of ice, gashing his knee. Jasper had been overdue to hunt, eyes black with thirst. It was Alice's last minute warning that had saved the day as usual.

Jasper had been so ashamed of himself for the close call. He was still working on that whole mind-over-matter thing.

And then, Jacob was pretty sensitive over the whole Cullen-Quileute treaty thing. He tolerated certain members of the family only because they were, at heart, "good" vampires. Any human life lost, even by accident and overwhelming thirst, would have put a real damper on our big happy inter-species family.

Jacob had asked Edward why we couldn't store blood the way we did when I was a baby. Keep it on hand, just for emergencies, so that no one's thirst could get out of hand.

Edward had explained how difficult it was to purchase donated blood in such quantities, even for a doctor, and how that would diminish the supply needed for living humans. Also, it would turn their eyes a socially unacceptable red.

Then Jacob had asked about storing animal blood, the kind that was ninety-eight percent similar to humans: that of apes.

Carlisle had lit up like a beacon, saying "I can't believe we didn't think of this before."

Jacob had spread his hands and said, "That's why they pay me the big bucks!"

So, we ordered quantities of blood from non-endangered, died-of-natural-causes orangutans, chimps, gorillas, and other smaller apes from medical testing facilities. We kept a tank of it refrigerated on dry ice in Edward's car when Jasper was at school, just in case. And we kept it in the fridge (in opaque glass, of course).

I wasn't supposed to drink it but every once in awhile. "To my health," I said to myself.

It was close enough to human blood that on the rare occasions my family drank it, it gave their golden eyes an odd tinge, the color of peaches.

The microwave beeped and I grabbed my warm cup and sat down at the kitchen table, looking out on the fresh morning snow that glowed in the dark. I heard Jacob's motorcycle out front; he'd been coming over for breakfast almost every day.

"Morning, Nessie!" said Esme, opening a cabinet and taking out a frying pan. "What do you think he'll want for breakfast? Pancakes?"

"Did I hear something about pancakes?" Jacob stood in the doorway, leather jacket slung over one shoulder.

"Eggs with that? You need protein," said Esme.

"Yes, Mom," he said, joking, and Esme beamed. He turned to me. "Blood today, Ness? Gross."

"Mmm," I said, taking a long gulp and licking my reddened lips. "Like the finest wine."

"And at six in the morning. Shame on you." Jacob pulled out a chair and dropped down next to me. His hand stole under the table and rubbed my knee. I bit my lip against the pleasure of it. "Pretty morning."

"Snowball fight!" said Emmett, sticking his head in the room. "You two are about to get served."

"That's what you think," said Jacob. "Oh, thanks, Esme," he said as she sat two plates in front of him, one with a huge stack of buttermilk pancakes, the other with scrambled eggs.

"Let's put off the fight until tomorrow," I said. "Seth and Leah, 'member? They'll want their chance to wallop Emmett."

Jacob grinned. He'd been away from his pack too long. Although he communicated with them every day when he was phased, it wasn't the same as having them near.

"You're like a dog without a family," I said, turning my lips into a mock pout and rubbing his arm in sympathy.

"And what are we, cold toast?" said Emmett.

"Cold ones," Jacob corrected.

"Brrrr," I added.

"I'll tell you what's brrrr," said Emmett, "being buried in snowballs."

"I'll melt them away," said Jacob. That was probably true.

"Contributing to global warming?" said Edward, appearing behind Emmett.

"We throw better snowballs than you guys," I said. "Our hands melt the outside into that nice, aerodynamic, icy crust. Sorry, but it just doesn't compare."

"We'll see about that." Emmett held that familiar glint of a challenge in his eye.

Jacob polished off his breakfast and I drained my cup, washing it out in the sink. All the rest of my family had hunted yesterday, Thursday, because it had been the sunny day before the snowstorm, and also because we were about to host humans in the house.

We formed a convoy on the way to school: Edward, Emmett, and Jasper in the Volvo at the front, then Jacob on his Harley, then we girls in Rosalie's M3. There was little traffic on the road on account of the fresh snow. The plows were still asleep, apparently.

This was upstate New York, used to winter weather, so there was no snow day as there might have been in Forks. We pulled into the parking lot earlier than most of the students, though; Emmett tried to start something by flinging snow at Rosalie. She didn't take the bait, shrieking about her hair.

Jacob got a wicked grin and, pretending to drop something in the snow, formed a perfect snowball and hit her from behind, straight on the back of the head.

"Mongrel," Rosalie snarled, "You are going to pay for that."

"How, exactly?" Jacob taunted.

Rosalie scowled prettily. "It's a surprise."

"Ha!" said Edward. "You just don't know." When it came to Rosalie versus Jacob, Edward tended to take Jacob's side.

"Oh, stop showing off, Edward," said Rosalie, and stomped through the snow toward the school, followed by Emmett, who gave Jacob a thumbs-up behind her back.

The rest of them walked ahead, too confident of their grace to be human. It was no wonder that the other students kept their distance from the Cullen family. For all their beauty and fashion, I could see that our unnatural poise would be creepy.

Jacob and I were left standing by his motorcycle. He took both my hands and leaned in to whisper in my ear. "Ten bucks and a kiss says I can beat you in a thumb war at lunch."

A kiss, huh? You trying to make me lose on purpose? My stomach did loops as he stepped closer, tugging my arms so they went around his waist.

"That's why I added the ten bucks," he said.

Do I get to kiss you if I win?

"You'd better." His lips were so close to me that I could feel the swirl of his warm breath in the folds of my ear.

"Hi, Jake!" A perky voice interrupted our moment. I turned to glare at Abby Ullman as she clicked the button to lock her silver Mercedes. She wore a pink puff jacket with a grey fur collar. It looked and smelled suspiciously like wolf fur to me.

"Hi, Abby," Jacob said. It had gotten out of hand, Abby's blatant efforts to both get Jacob on the football team (thus raising his coolness factor) and also to get him to ask her out. Jacob was amused by it; I was not so much.

"That's a beautiful coat," I said, to draw Jacob's attention to its probable origins. One thing observing high school had taught me was how to backbite with a compliment.

"Uh, thanks," said Abby, no fool as to what I meant. "Renessa, isn't it?"

"Nessie."

"Oh, that's right," Abby laughed. "Like the lake monster. How precious."

I narrowed my eyes at her. "Jacob thinks so."

Jacob looked from one of us to the other, bewildered. Out of your depth, Jake, I thought to him through my hands. We're having a fight.

This made his brow crease even further.

"Seriously, though, Abby, I love the coat. Where'd you find it?"

"Barney's," she said, petting the fur collar with one bejeweled hand. "That's in New York City."

"Is it real?"

"Duh! I don't wear fake anything."

Except your smile, I thought. "It's gorgeous. What kind of fur?"

"Grey desert wolf," Abby said. "Wolves are a menace, I'm doing the world a favor."

I grinned; Jacob looked disgusted. He stared at Abby with a hard mixture of disdain, anger, and irritation at her lack of compassion. "Too bad you feel that way," he said.

Abby blinked and looked at him, as though just remembering that he was the reason she and I had been tangling for dominance. "Um, anyway," she said after an awkward silence. "See you in class, Jake."

Jacob and I walked hand-in-hand through the school doors.

Even for immortal vampires, werewolves, and hybrids, the Christmas holiday excitement was in the air to coincide with the snow. Our teachers didn't try very hard to keep order, so in homeroom Chemistry, I chattered under my breath to Alice about the gifts we'd gotten our family. The two ditzy girls in front of us scribbled notes back and forth the entire period. Mr. Morris, the teacher, spoke half-heartedly about the dismal quality of the lab reports we'd be getting back today; he sounded like he needed a vacation, too.

Alice and I got an A on our report, of course. Alice could foresee the correct answers.

I grasped Alice's wrist and said, I can't wait to see how Jacob reacts.

"Me, too!" she said.

Although it used to really bother Alice how she couldn't see my future or that of the shapeshifters, especially in those more dangerous times of sixteen years ago, sometimes she enjoyed the small surprises, like the reaction to a gift. It would get old, seeing everything ahead of time and not living in the moment.

As for Jacob's reaction… it was a joint gift from my parents and me, an engine to top all engines, in desperate need of restoration. Not a car, not a motorcycle… but a genuine World War Two-era Messerschmidt jet engine. It had been discovered rusting away in an old barn in Germany and sold at auction. Jacob was going to love it, I knew it.

It wasn't a very romantic gift, though. I should think of something more personal to give him, something that could only come from me, in addition to the jet engine.

We're a weird family, I thought.

Alice nodded enthusiastically.

In English class we had a reading day, so I relaxed into my chair and enjoyed Emma for the umpteenth time. Next to me, Bella read out of her own copy, posed like a human leaning on her elbow with her hand supporting her head. Once in awhile she would glance at me and smile.

Once in awhile, I would touch her wrist and think, Charlie! And Seth!

At lunch, Jacob and I sat next to each other. "One, two, three, four, I declare a thumb war!" we chanted in unison. To the encouragement of my family, I put up a good fight, but Jacob won.

We must have looked so human in that moment… and I felt a thrill thinking about the private moment when I would give Jacob his victor's reward.

Silly that we needed thumb wars as an excuse for a kiss, but like we'd agreed, we were taking things slowly. One kiss a day. No more, but no less. I was terrified of losing Jacob and I knew that if I felt forced into something, I would freak out and ruin everything. We were in murky territory. I didn't want to make a wrong step in an eternal direction.

Finally, last period, and the last time I would have to see Mr. Zuchman in this calendar year. I stared with loathing at the way his stringy hair was combed across his bald spot. He was slumped in front of his computer at the front of the room, the picture of human incompetence, and I repressed a tingling wave of impatience.

I clicked out of the article he was making us read on the origins of Fortran computer language. Boring. Instead I wrote a quick program to scan the spiking activities of signals originating in South America. The mystery of Mendel was unsolved, and I still hadn't heard from my friend PeuChen91. Only half paying attention, I entered my encrypted email account… and sat straight up in my chair.

It was from PeuChen91. The subject line was "help."

Glancing around to make sure no one had noticed my reaction – Zuchman was almost asleep, the kid next to me was playing Solitaire, and Abby was punching something into her glossy phone – I opened the email.

I've been looking for Mendel. I thought he was near me, here in Rio. I was right.

I think he's found me.

This is all I can give you. He's hunting me down, sniffing me out, and when he does, something really bad's going to happen. I wish I could tell you more. Just that I think he's worse than a hacker.

I've attached the lines of code I was able to copy off his hard drive before he spiked me. Maybe it'll give you a clue.

DON'T go after him yourself. Go to the authorities.

If you don't hear from me soon, you'll know why.

Guys, be careful.

Signing off,

PeuChen91.

[Attachment] mendelfiles . zip

I stared in disbelief. Whatwas going on down in Brazil? I was paralyzed with worry for my friend. I'd never met her, didn't even know her real name, but she needed my help. We were allies in the war against governments and the suppression of information, against the hackers and crackers that wanted to damage the system, even against the pixilated demons and monsters of our online gaming. I couldn't let this go. And she was a vulnerable human… all kinds of bad things might happen to her.

I saw that she'd sent the message to me, Silvius, and DeviDiva. I cc'd them my response.

PeuChen91. You need to go to the police if you think you're in danger.

I bit my lip, thinking of other connections I had in South America. I wished there was some way to get in contact with the Amazon coven. I knew that Zafrina and her sisters would help me, but they were wild women, living in the deepest forest. There was no way to reach them in time. Sighing, I knew we would have to go the traditional route.

Tell the police you feel endangered by an online stalker. They take those things seriously these days. Let us know that you're ok. I'll be working on this code.

Please write back.

Morphette.

I clicked the send button. As soon as I did, an error message came back to me. Mouth dry, I saw that PeuChen91's account had been closed. The message was undelivered.

I jumped when the final bell rang. Closing out all my programs and shutting down access from that computer, I grabbed my bag and ran over to Jacob on our way out the door. "I need to do some work," I said. "Are you going home with them?" I nodded in the direction of Edward and Bella walking hand-in-hand down the hall ahead of us. Edward's bronze hair stood out in a crowd.

Jacob nodded. "I could come with you if you need help. Or moral support?" There was hope in his voice.

Okay, but I don't have time for shenanigans, Jacob.

He chortled and promised to be good and not distract me.

And I guess I could use a ride on your motorcycle.

"I knew you had some ulterior motive."

The freezing wind laced its icy fingers through my hair as I rode behind Jacob on the roaring Harley. It felt nice, as though the breeze was clearing any clutter out of my head.

The haunted house was hunkered down in the snow, drifts piling up on the porch and along the windows. It looked utterly neglected. No one would ever have guessed that I was running a world-class computer in there.

Jacob vanished into the woods to run as a wolf for awhile; he wanted to double-check the Clearwaters' arrival time tomorrow. It was easier than calling. I dashed up the stairs and dropped my bag onto the floor, swinging into my chair.

Typing fast, I did something I'd never done before. I traced PeuChen91's screen name and server, trying to find her address. This was seriously not okay in the world of online gaming, because it was too stalker-ish and illegal and showed mistrust of friends. I was certain she wouldn't mind in these circumstances, though.

My tracing program took some minutes to run. My fingers drummed impatiently along the edge of the desk. I watched as the signal bounced from place to place, through filters and foreign cities. PeuChen91 was hard to find. I was surprised that Mendel had found her physical location, if in fact he had.

Sitting back in my chair, I thought about this. It was very unusual for our online activities to turn into real physical danger.

PeuChen91 must have found something big.

While the trace ran, I downloaded the lines of code that she'd gotten from Mendel and made multiple backups. I couldn't wait to sink my teeth into it.

Boop. The computer made a satisfied noise. "Trace complete," it said.

PeuChen91's home system was on the outskirts of Rio, in a suburb called Belford Roxo. I memorized the street address and the map. Then I found the landline telephone for that address. Breathing fast, I used an encrypted program to call the number.

It rang for ten minutes. No answer.

"Hey," said Jacob from behind me. I'd been so absorbed that I hadn't realized he was back in human form. "How's it going?"
"I don't know," I sighed. "One of my online friends has gone missing."

Jacob's hand was on my shoulder. "That's weird."

I'm worried about her. Humans are so… fragile.

"Maybe she's just taking a break – like she took a nerd antidote pill or something and she's doing real-life stuff."

No, she sent me a message. I pulled up PeuChen91's last communication.

Jacob whistled. "Okay, that does sound a little serious."

Not much I can do, though, except wait and pray.

His hand squeezed my shoulder. "We better get going. It's dark already and I know Bells will want our help getting ready for tomorrow."

I was supposed to be making a welcome-to-Rochester quiche and doing all the cooking while Charlie and the Clearwaters were staying with us, because Leah wouldn't eat food cooked by leeches, and gave me a pass only because I was Jacob's Almighty Imprinted One.

As I stood up, Jacob didn't move back, and we were toe-to-toe. I looked up into his eyes.

He raised his hands to cradle my head and neck. "Ness…"

My skin was flushed and I rolled my head into his touch. The tiny hairs on the nape of my neck tingled. I tilted my face up, lips open, wondering if he was going to kiss me…

"Part of my thumb war victory," he said. "You have no choice."

I stiffened. No choice…

Jacob must have realized this was the wrong thing to say, because he bent down quickly and covered my mouth with his. Trying, I was sure, to distract me. I was distracted. Shoot, but he was a good kisser. So confident in himself, so completely masculine.

I hoped I was feminine enough to make this last. All I wanted was for him to seize me in his strong arms and kiss me, my lips and neck and throat and…

He was doing those things even as I thought them.

We were a little bit late getting home.

Jacob dropped me off on his motorcycle and I hugged him from behind, planting a soft kiss behind his ear.

"Good night, Rapunzel," he murmured.

Except I can jump down from my tower.

"I'll keep that in mind."

I skipped into the house, waving as Jacob drove off, but got serious when I found Alice at her vanity table. She was sketching a cocktail dress. "Hi, Nessie," she said, showing me her drawing of a long fishtail skirt and a draped sleeve. "What do you think? Too old-fashioned?"

"No, it's beautiful," I said. "Can I ask you to look at something for me?"

"Of course." Alice set her pen down.

"It's about a friend of mine – a girl in Brazil. Rio de Janeiro. She's one of my online friends, I've known her for years, but I have no idea what she looks like, so no picture. Anyway, she's sort of… gone missing. Can you tell me if she's okay?"

Alice's tiny features were serious. "I can try, but since I don't know her at all, and you don't know her…"

"I know it's iffy. I just feel like I should do something."

"Okay. What's her name?"

"PeuChen91."

Alice stared.

"That's her handle. That's all I know."

Nodding, Alice closed her eyes. When she opened them again, they were distant, somewhere else. Brazil, I hoped. Her head tilted this way and that as she scanned the future. This continued for several minutes until Edward appeared at the door, looking very confused. I waved at him to not interrupt.

"I'm sorry, Nessie, I'm not getting anything at all," said Alice. "I saw Brazil, but only the outcome of their soccer team this year, and then a jungle, and slum kids playing in the street, and then winning numbers of the Minnesota state lottery."

"Nothing?"

"A big blank. There's one possibility –" Alice hesitated.

I could feel Edward's short intake of breath.

Alice said, "There might not be a future to see."

I felt a little punch in the gut. "As in… she could be dead."

A sympathetic nod. "But not necessarily. It could be just that I'm not reading her."

"No, that's okay. Thank you, Alice."

"If I anything shows up, I'll let you know," said Alice, picking up her pen once more.


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