Pairing: Bella/Jacob
Rating: M
Genre: Action
Word Count: 613 (I'm getting better. ;))
Prompt: "Here we go again."
Origin: Tricky Raven's Weekly Drabble Round-up.
Antivenom
Bella sat on the floor, her back propped against the unforgiving concrete wall that, to many, would have felt like a cell. To Bella, the pack, and the rest of the tribe, it represented the closest thing to home that they had known for the last few weeks.
The pack had made a run down to South America to help another indigenous tribe hold off the Volturi several months back, before the attacks had stepped up.
The Volturi had found out about shape-shifters a few years back and seemed intent on wiping them out for the sole purpose of destroying anything that could pose a threat to their reign.
Bella had a good idea who might have let that little secret slip—the petty, obnoxious little coppertop twerp who'd sworn he was her soul mate once upon a time, then left her for dead—
She snorted in disgust, interrupting her own thoughts and swiping a filthy hand over her dusty face. She froze when she saw her hand.
The sight of her calloused hands was still a shock after all this time. The attacks had been ongoing for several years—long enough for the tribe to build this bunker and expand a series of interconnecting tunnels deep beneath the rez that began as an old moonshine operation during prohibition.
It became their refuge when the swarms of newborn vampires continued to plague their lands. Someone was intent on wiping them out, especially now that word had gotten out about their secret weapon.
Charlie's bullets.
Or, more accurately, Bella's bullets.
When Edward saved her all those years earlier in Phoenix, he inadvertently created an anomaly—a living human whose body began to develop antibodies to the trace amounts of venom that remained within the scar tissue. The scar became inflamed after Jacob marked her, affording the clinic physician on the rez the chance to do a thorough study of the wolves, Bella's trace scar venom, and her unique blood.
What he found finally silenced all the naysayers amongst the tribe who spurned the Blacks because Jacob married an outsider.
That outsider held the cure for vampirism—antivenom.
It was Bella who found a way to weaponize it. With Charlie's help, hollow-point bullets were manufactured in secret in a small chamber beneath the council hall, each one containing a small, but deadly drop of Bella's blood.
Antiquated vampirism was no match for modern technology. Nor were the vampires anywhere near as invincible as they assumed.
The AV bullets expanded on impact, creating fissures in the body of the host. Once those fissures were open, the venom within the vampire itself acted against its own best interests—seeking out and consuming the miniscule amount of blood within.
The vampires dropped within nanoseconds of impact.
Charlie—an expert marksman—trained anyone brave enough to leave the bunker during a vampire incursion.
The tribe had thirty trained snipers. Bella and the imprints were the first seven to complete the training.
A knock sounded on the door at her back.
"It's time," Jacob's Alpha voice resonated through the thick steel door as no human voice could.
Dusting off her worn fatigues and checking her pockets, Bella looked to the other women as they rose to their feet, making eye contact with each before she swung the door open and kissed her mate 'hello'.
"Scouts say at least twenty this time. Pack has engaged twelve. Eight remain on the loose. You ready?" he asked, indulging himself, holding her another moment before letting go.
She nodded sharply, smiled, turned, and kicked the outside door open with one booted foot before he phased and bolted out ahead.
Raising her rifle to her shoulder, she murmured, "Here we go again."