OPPORTUNITY

"In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity." —Sun Tzu, The Art of War

—

DECEMBER 6TH 2039

3:52AM MST

NEDERLAND, COLORADO

Asinine! Foolish! Stupid! Ridiculous!

They were dead. Every single one of them was destined to end up a stain on the Earth that only rain would wash away or wind would scatter. This coven had its days, maybe even its hours, numbered in the single-digits and all because the Major was a goddamn irresponsible coward living a lie.

Maria stopped moving when the heel of her boot caught on a wet patch. The cold, icy rain that started falling hours ago coated the Earth in a layer of disgusting mush. Every step she took made a disgusting sound.

She had half of a mind to rip off and throw the blasted shoes back toward the house. Perhaps if she shattered a window one of the simpletons would come confront her.

Maria thought that perhaps she might be able to goad one of them into a decent fight. A fair one, this time. There was no soreness in her shoulder or her chest leftover from Peter's earlier blow. It probably wouldn't take her much to taunt him into another round. After all, if his useless little mate was dead, she wouldn't even need to do or say much to prompt such a response.

Maria clenched her jaw and continued walking away from the house. No, arguing wouldn't help her. Only ripping a few heads from necks would make her feel better. That wasn't something she could do easily. Not here.

If she decided to take her men and leave, she could dispose of them by sunrise. She would have to, really. She would run back south, start anew. Maria would have to really push her limits. She hadn't commanded an army of more than twenty-one since the Major departed—she hadn't needed to either since now her reputation preceded her and no one dared to approach Monterrey unless they had a death wish—but now she would need all the muscle she could get.

She didn't even know what sort of 'weapons' Esteban had been given.

What Maria needed was a group of vampires who knew what they were up against. She had that in the Major and a little bit in the snobbish Peter, but that was it. None of these wobbly Cullens could help them if they didn't know.

It also didn't help that their dependence on one another was a crippling, dangerous thing. All it took was one of them to get hurt or killed and then the rest of them would crumble. Maria would be better off with raw muscle and angry newborns. The Cullens were obtuse, simple, brainless morons if they thought they stood even a chance against someone as gruesome and indomitable as Esteban.

More importantly, Maria was a careless idiot for thinking that coming here would do her any good.

The Volturi—the goddamned Volturi—were after them. For all the peace and amity that Carlisle Cullen had claimed his family desired when they'd met eighty years ago, they'd sure made some grievous miscalculation in the meantime.

Maria stopped, turned, and started walking back toward their outrageous house. Ignorance would not save her from whatever fate was hidden beyond. If Esteban went to Monterrey next, if Esteban desired her head, then where she was would not matter. The only thing that mattered was that she tried to stay as far ahead of him as possible.

Fools that they were, the Cullens were more than willing to put their lives on the line for people they so irrationally desired to protect. It was one thing the Cullens had in common with her men, at least. Well, two things: stupidity and their feebleminded affections.

Maria was not quiet as she marched back toward the house. When the conversation that had been transpiring in her absence fell to an abrupt, obvious halt, she almost laughed. She wanted to scream "oh, fuck you, too" but knew it wouldn't win her any progress. These weren't newborns she could kill and replace.

They were something far, far more annoying than that. Something more permanent, unfortunately.

Maria strode in through the still-opened glass door at the back end of their house and walked right into their kitchen area. It was then that she saw the other two occupants of the house.

Maria recognized Carlisle Cullen's mate. She was the one who hadn't spoken much the first time around. The one who Maria had heard actually, legitimately sobbing when the car carrying her and three other members of their coven sped away in the dead of night after all was said and done. The only reason Maria even knew her name was because everyone had constantly cooed it at her that night.

Maria would never not find it ridiculous to see a grown woman coddled so. This time, the woman did not cower behind another member of her family. Instead she turned where she stood across the kitchen, looking directly at Maria for once, and attempted to hide the stranger behind her back.

Maria almost wanted to grin and say 'finally' at the sight of the pitiful woman doing something that wasn't pitiful, but Esme Cullen was not the one who held her attention. The girl behind her blinked toward Maria with wide, brown eyes, and for half of a second Maria was almost confused with the spark of recognition that flared within her.

The heartbeat was coming from this very much not-human thing. It stared at Maria overtop of Esme's head and then took an involuntary step back when Maria stepped forward.

Maria did not hold back her scoff and instead took a few steps to the side so she could see the girl-thing better.

She surely wasn't human. Maria would have clocked the scent instantly upon arrival in the home. She knew that the Cullens were weird human-conspirators and interacted with them outside of mealtimes, so she had expected some leftover scent, but she found nothing lingering. The not-human did not smell like a vampire, and the strong unpleasant stink that permeated the house did not smell like this thing either.

Whatever this girl was, she was wholly other, and was almost convincingly vampiric.

Maria only laughed at the sight of the creature. "Esteban will have a field day with you."

"Enough," the detestable boy—Edward—moved further into the kitchen to stand in front of the girl-creature. "No warlords are going to hurt our family." Maria almost laughed at how much like Carlisle he sounded. Like a child repeating phrases that he heard but didn't understand.

"You write me off so quickly?" It was difficult to keep the smile out of her pout. They were so easy to instigate.

"This 'Esteban' doesn't know who he's dealing with."

"Oh, so the Major told you all about him in the twenty minutes that I was gone? Impressive. Mind if I quiz you?"

Edward ignored her and escorted the creature out of the kitchen and out of Maria's sight.

That was when Maria realized that it was Peter who now occupied their living quarters. Maria could hear him across the house, and the quiet voice speaking to him in reply had to be the Major's feeble mate. The Major himself was not in sight but if Peter was inside of the home it only meant that the Major was doing what he did best: terrorizing her newborns, probably.

He was as stupid and loyal and handsome as ever.

The irritation at the Major attending to her men did not sink too far into her. Despite the occasional uneasy whine or growl she could still hear from the garage, there was silence. If the Major was in there he at least hadn't started interrogating them yet. Or killing them.

Two good things.

Not that it mattered now. She had to retrieve her men soon, and leave. But before she did that she needed to know more about what the fuck they had specifically done to force the Volturi to target them. What was the extent of their horrendous crimes that had landed them on the Volturi's radar in the first place? Was it their lives among humans, or something more unbelievable? Was it the girl-creature, or perhaps tied to her existence? Once Maria could adequately pick their brains—the brains that had information that they could provide her with; the brains that hopefully had two measures of sense left inside of them—she would regroup, re-strategize, and get as far away from these dead fools as she possibly could.

"Is that it?" Maria pointed toward where Edward had whisked the creature away. She looked toward the closest person to her, the woman, Esme. "Is that proof of your crime?"

Esme bristled. "Our family has committed no—"

"Oh, for crying out loud," she turned toward the next-closest person. The girl whose name she didn't know yet. "It's a yes or no question. Obviously you guys fucked up. Is that thing your fuck-up? Are these words you understand?" She spoke slowly at the end, waiting for the dark-haired woman to either cower away or snap with irritation.

To Maria's dismay, she did neither. She stared back at Maria as she spoke, "That is my daughter."

"Oh, my god," Maria almost started laughing then. "You're all imbeciles. Big happy family of vampires who are each others brother and mother and sister and who fuck each other like the band of pseudo-inbred, vermin-eating maniacs you are."

"That is my biological daughter," the girl insisted, even after Maria had turned away from her to look for the angry blonde wench that would always entertain in spats more effectively. That declaration made Maria pause in her survey. "She's half human, and half vampire."

If there was any unease at speaking to Maria, at least the girl did her best to hide it. Even when Maria turned her head back toward her and stared with an incredulous expression.

"What is your name?" she demanded.

"Bella."

"When did you join this coven?"

"Technically? 2006."

Maria's eyes widened just barely, the math beginning to add up. "So, it was you?"

"She didn't do a damn—" Ah, there was the blonde brat—

"Yes," Bella spoke louder than the doll could bitch and nodded. That was the moment that Maria saw the first pieces of unease slip into her expression. She tilted her chin upward, her fists clenching firmly at her side. She refused to break eye contact and Maria almost entertained the foolish display of falsely placed bravado.

"Lower your head, idiot. You don't look brave, you just look stupid." She watched as Bella lowered her chin and clicked her tongue. Then, Maria studied Bella's expression, thought back to the vampire-human-creature, and then when Edward walked back into the room she looked at his face. When it clicked for her, she almost screamed.

Instead, she inhaled slowly, and exhaled even slower.

Then, she laughed. "You really are some sick, sick people." She shook her head and took a couple steps backward. "You rape some human child—" someone made a hilarious sound in protest of her word choice "—create some sort of abomination and then what? They came to render it to pieces? To rightfully punish you?"

"Don't you fucking dare say something like that," Rosalie grabbed Maria by the arm before she could walk around her. "You don't have a right to say anything about things you don't understand."

"Oh, can it!" Maria smacked her hand off of her. God, they should be so grateful that she didn't tear it fully off. "None of you! NONE of you are allowed to find offense with my assumptions when you people have told me nothing!" She stormed away and planted herself in the room that Carlisle Cullen was currently standing in. The same room she'd been sitting in when she'd told them they were doomed. "I have told you who is coming! I have told you who has armed them! You have in return cocked your head like birds at the warning of danger and have returned nothing to me. You have no information to give me. You fill in no blanks and answer questions with the naivete of children."

She moved herself directly in front of Carlisle and pointed her finger up at his face. Unlike the Major, he flinched away from her. It was embarrassing.

"You have a warlord and the Volturi coming for you and I am not about to stick around to see how that plays out. No matter what you do now, you can not win." Maria stepped back and turned her head toward the silent garage.

She paused for two entire seconds as she decided on her plan. She would take her army, head straight back down south, explain the best that she could to these men that They are in more danger than I and The visit was a disappointment but now I know more and I'm so sorry you had to see me act that way and then once she got close enough to Mexico she would destroy them and begin building her army up from scratch from there.

She would have to keep moving as she worked—she could hardly return directly to Monterrey, even now—and perhaps she could use what she knew to her advantage. After all, none of the other warlords knew that she actually knew where Esteban was. If they were still biding their time, many of them might still be without armies of their own.

Maria would have the upper hand in so many ways. All she would have to do would be to keep moving, make a threat or three, and maybe she could even get that idiot Ismael in on it.

On second thought, he'd enjoy that too much. Besides, Maria didn't want to kill him unless she had to, and if she decided to ally herself with him then she'd be forced to get rid of him eventually.

"I'm getting my men and I out of here," she muttered angrily as she turned on her heel and began to wander toward the garage at the far end of their house.

"Please," Carlisle had the nerve to call after her and—was he actually following her?—"it's not safe right now. If you leave you could get hurt."

Maria ignored his foolish reasoning. "You are the bullseye currently being aimed at, not I."

"You can't leave."

Maria stopped her stride fully and turned to glare at the girl as she entered the room. "You may want to rephrase that."

Alice did not rephrase her statement, instead she added more baffling words onto it. "We need you."

Maria guffawed. She had not expected them to start begging already. Nor did she really want them to at this point. Her mind was made up and they would soon realize it. "While I appreciate you rolling over to show me your belly, it is too late for you to appeal to my kinder side, my dear girl."

"How can you be sure this Esteban will do what the Volturi want?"

"You mean to kill you all? I'm sure if you people are the ones that made fools of them years ago then surely those two can come to an easy agreement. It appears that your extermination benefits multiple parties." She paused, "For once, I'm not even in one of those groups! How funny."

"You said that it would be better to be killed than to be taken by Esteban."

"Which you all don't need to worry about, it seems," Maria turned to head back toward the garage. This conversation wasn't going to get her anywhere. Maria needed to get out and leave. Now. "By all means, if you're afraid to face him, then just get someone to kill you before he attacks. Then you'll be spared that fate."

"No, I won't."

"What are you—"

"Alice—"

When multiple Cullens spoke at once, Maria stopped again, turned, and stared at them all. One of them had even shushed her. Alice was the only one looking at her. Everyone else in the room—and even Peter, from two rooms away but still in Maria's eye line—stared at Alice, their expressions odd.

"You've been down there longer than Jasper has been gone," she spoke, her words coming quickly and with confidence. "At least tell me what I'm up against."

Maria had to give the girl credit: her casual use of the singular 'I' certainly got Maria's attention. She knew that there was a way that this could be a simple trick. Maria knew just how easy it was to manipulate someone else with just a change in tone, a slip of a word here and there, and withholding just enough information to make the other person curious.

Alice was setting some sort of trap, but Maria's mind was made up, and she'd be grabbing these men and leaving soon anyways, so she entertained the strange inquiry.

"You seem to be oddly confident that you won't have your head ripped right off the instant you meet Esteban and his cult." Alice approached until she was standing close. Maria tried not to grin as Alice had to look up at her, still finding some small pleasure over the fact that she was taller. "The Major can't protect you from dozens of newborns at once. Unless, of course, you're confident enough that you can outclass the rest of your family."

She didn't fall for the bait. Instead, Alice continued talking. "You're the one that told us that he does, in fact, take prisoners."

"Yes but, my sweet girl," Maria almost felt bad at the misplaced confidence emitting from her. "You are the Major's mate. If you don't get your skull split in two on the battlefield, he'll do it, slowly, afterward. There is no world in which you make it out of this alive."

"Yes, there is."

"Alice."

Maria whirled around then. She was not about to entertain a conversation with Alice when the Major was coming up behind her. She watched as he approached, his expression angry, and Maria would've snapped at him to 'Get back in there and watch the goddamn newborns' if she hadn't caught sight of Emmett slipping into the garage in that moment to do just that.

There were already too many eyes on her from too many different angles. Maria hated this. She allowed Alice to grab her hand and pull her along after her.

"Alice, stop." Edward spoke again.

"It's the only way," she said, her voice far more frustrated than Maria expected it to be. "I promise. Jazz," Alice looked over Maria's shoulder, where the Major was standing. "It's fine. It'll be fine."

Maria was amused by everyone's unease—not to mention the utterly ridiculous nickname—as Alice continued dragging her forward. She half-expected to be dragged outside so they could have a more private conversation. Or hell, even somewhere that the entire damn family wasn't just staring at them.

Instead, Alice pulled Maria by the hand through the house and into a room that was was far larger than it looked like it should be from the outside. The ceilings were higher than they were in the other rooms on the same level. Bookshelves, all in varying shades of darkened wood and filled to the brim with books, covered almost every square inch of wall space. A pair of cherry-brown desks on each side of the room were pushed out of the way and up against the walls, and an ugly tan rug stretched the entire length of the tall, wide room.

Sheets of paper had been taped up in vertical rows on every visible surface; someone had scratched quick, delicate words onto each sheet. Some of the posted papers were layered on top of others, creating longer strips of white. Maria approached a few of them when she realized that this was what Alice was trying to show her. Her curiosity got the better of her.

Most of the names were unrecognizable to her. Maria quickly realized that these were people that the Cullens were keeping tabs on somehow. She glanced back toward the larger desk and at the desktop monitor that sat on top of it and narrowed her eyes.

She fucking hated when she had to ask a question that she should be able to answer herself. She'd only ever used radios and telephones. All other technology irritated and confused her, which only served to irritate her more. Had it always been possible to gather this sort of information with access to a damn computer and the blasted internet?

Maria picked a paper that had received three, crudely-attached additions and studied it, top to bottom.

ELEAZAR

PEGASUS PEAK 11:43PM

RETURNS FROM HUNTING W/K. PIPE BURST IN BASEMENT. ALL HOME

11:59PM - NOTHING O.O.O. - MORNING PLANS TO TRAVEL TO TOWN

12:02AM - C+K WILL GO. E WILL STAY W/G+T

1:21AM - C PUTS ON MOVIE

There were dozens of them. Maria paused when her eyes landed on a row of papers a few steps away. She didn't need to approach it to see what it said but her feet moved on their own accord.

MARIA

FAMILIAR WEATHER PATTERN 10:59 US OR CANADA

11:14 - SILENT TRAVEL

11:28 - PAUSE AT INTERSTATE. TRAVEL EASTBOUND TO OVERPASS

11:40 - BLCK HR MAN QUESTION: "WILL THE WEATHER PREVENT A SCENT TRAIL?"

11:42 - 1ST INDIC. SHES LOOKING FOR SOMETHING

12:22 - RD HR MAN: "THAT'S A SIGN FOR A CAMP GROUND"

MARIA: "QUIET THEN"

1:15 - ANGRY AT SHRT BLD HR MAN SLIPPING ON ICE

NAME: JAMIE ?

1:40 - POTENTI. KING SOOPERS SIGN IN DISTANCE ?

"Are you going to tell me your trick?" Maria asked. She removed her eyes from the strange report and slowly turned toward where Alice stood. Alice stared at a couple of papers a few yards away and did not react to the question. Maria couldn't see what was written on the papers that Alice studied due to the angle, but even despite her curiosity she did not approach. She didn't want to. Not yet. "Or is this a new decorating choice?"

The Major stood by the doorway, silent and fuming. God, he'd never been any good at hiding his temper. Standing inside of the doorway, not quite in or out of the room, was Edward, looking just as unhappy at what was occurring.

"You are going to take them and head down the mountain range, and probably travel as far south as you can." Alice turned and glanced over her shoulder at Maria, and the twitch in Alice's lips as she spoke her next words annoyed her, "You really don't need to lie to them that much. You said it before: they like you."

Maria ground her frustration into dust at Alice's casual words. Any time any of the Cullens mentioned her newborns she wanted to tell them to shut up. They were going to blow this for her. She could only hope the work she'd put in to get them to be agreeable and obedient would serve her well.

Or at least until she got far enough away.

"Do you want me to tell you, or would you rather that I write down the ones you're going to have trouble getting rid of?" Alice gestured to the pens and the pile of papers sitting abandoned in the middle of the floor. "Is that a vague enough way of putting it? Or do they know what you're planning?"

"I care less about what they know and more about what you do," Maria snarled as she began to advance. "You seem to be enjoying your bold assumptions. How often does this arrogance serve you well?"

Alice turned toward her fully, hands at her sides, golden eyes calm and patient, and looked entirely unbothered at Maria's slow, angry approach. Maria prepared to demand whether or not Alice had—

"I don't have a death wish, nor do I plan on dying."

Maria stopped. Alice continued.

"It will take me eighteen seconds to recite to you the next thing that Isaac is going to tell you." Alice's voice was softer now. Any words she spoke would go unheard by anyone too far from the room. "Do you want to know that first, or do you want something you can hear from inside of the house? I do know you don't want them talking much. Or us talking to them." Before Maria could reply, she was speaking again. "I'm not going to say anything to them. I know you want them dead, but you should reconsider, first. We're really going to end up needing them. All of the people we can get, truthfully."

Maria did not know what her expression looked like. Her irritation had come to a grinding, screeching halt with every word Alice spoke, her confusion at war with her brain's desire to figure out both a way out of the conversation and a way to say anything without being fucking interrupted.

"H—"

"How am I able to do this?" Alice took two steps forward. "Are you asking that to be redundant or do you want to just do the easier thing?" Alice waited but didn't speak for a second. Then, she turned toward Edward and shrugged. "It is always easier to play the 'what number am I thinking of' game or just to do any old guessing game." Then, she turned back toward Maria. "Now, about Esteban." Alice blinked those freakish, yellow eyes up at her twice. "Esteban will not kill me if he is really here on Volturi orders."

In a horrid, abrupt instant, Maria understood what was happening. There was no way. There was no conceivable chance that this girl was insinuating that she possessed such a gift. It was… it was baffling. It was impossible. All at once though, it explained how she knew that Maria had shown up to help. It explained the way she had been able to so adequately foil Peter's little attack and successfully maim her own 'brother' to help Maria.

In no world would a vampire with such a gift be able to go undetected. In no world would someone like the Volturi not already have staked a claim on her.

"Do you have any way to get a hold of your friend?" Alice spoke. "I feel like he'd help. If you could even decide to get a hold of him, I'd be able to see for myself."

"What friend?" Dread crept up on her. Maria couldn't help but sneer the words. She did not entertain friends.

"Oh, I know you're not an idiot," Alice smiled then, and Maria despised the sight of it. She cocked her head to the side and Maria wanted to take two steps forward and smack it back upright. Her next words froze her. "Ismael is still waiting for you."

That was when all the pieces fell together. The creation girl-thing may have played a part, perhaps even been a catalyst, but her presence didn't seem to be what was threatening them all now. No, the real reason the Cullens were about to be eliminated was because they had a goddamn seer in their midst.

As the Major's mate, Esteban would want her dead. As a soothsayer, the Volturi would want her, period. With the two entities working together, Maria could not feasibly see how either of them would get what they wanted.

Maria had to properly acknowledge the glaring realization before her: which was the fact that the Volturi must be after her. But, of course, as Maria opened her mouth to speak, Alice answered the question.

"They are."

Those two little words confirmed all Maria needed to know. When Maria spoke next, it was not to the tiny psychic in front of her.

"It does not matter how badly the Volturi want her," the Major's eyes hardened when Maria locked gazes with him. She did not mock him, she did not smile, and she did not yell. In front of her stood something unheard of in their world.

A vampire the Volturi were starting a war over.

"If Esteban finds out she is your mate, he will peel the skin off of her bones and pull her apart piece by piece. He will torture her until her screams fill the air for as long as he desires."

Then, the Major's mate said the most perfect thing:

"Hard pass."

Maria turned back toward her and couldn't hold back her smirk. "Unless you're capable of more than you're letting on, it's hardly a choice you get to make."

"We need you." Alice's words were firm. "Without you, you're right: we're good as dead."

"What's in it for me?"

"You don't get killed, either."

Maria narrowed her eyes. "You seem to be forgetting that I'm not the target here."

"I'll give you one thing. You're right in that I don't know the first thing about this Father Esteban. But what I do know is that no matter how far you run, or where you hide, or how many newborns you think will protect you, it will not matter. It will not work.

"But you already knew that. That's why you're here. You thought you might be the first target before Jasper and all of us. You said it yourself: Father Esteban was given an errand. You didn't know we were the errand. You thought that after the errand he'd find you and he'd find Jasper and you figured that if you could get us in on it then it would increase your odds at survival." Alice paused. "I mean, stop me if I'm wrong."

Maria shrugged and lifted a hand, gesturing for her to continue. The idiotic girl could not genuinely think that Maria would interrupt her now. If Maria were lucky, she'd reveal too much.

"Stay here, because if you help us it's barely even that. We're still helping you no matter which way you spin this. Pretend all you want that you'll be able to go off on your own and train up a new army that'll magically save you."

"Instead of you magically saving us all?" Maria was amused by her word choice, but held her amused smirk steady on her face so that she wouldn't give away the frustration and anger and panic that was boiling beneath the surface. It was bad enough that the fucking Major could feel those things. With Maria's luck he'd tell Alice the instant she was out of earshot.

Which meant that she needed to stay close for a while. Which she would have to do while she collected more information from the girl. Which Maria damn well better start getting, and soon, because the sun would trap them in couple of hours and they had made no progress yet.

In the back of her head Maria knew that the longer she stayed, collecting information or not, the more difficult it would be to leave. But when Maria was wrong, she'd admit it. Of course, she wasn't wrong about anything right now. But she did concede the fact that Alice was right about one thing.

Without Maria, they really were as good as dead.