STRIKE

"So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong, and strike at what is weak."

—Sun Tzu, The Art of War

—

DECEMBER 7TH 2039

10:26AM MST

NEDERLAND, COLORADO

Maria was being good.

No, not good. Good was an understatement. Good was a casual descriptor that a stranger might use if they didn't know anything about Maria or the asinine situation she found herself in. Good was not the right word.

Saintly would have been a better descriptor. Unfortunately the word reminded her of Esteban and his twisted moralities and she pushed the adjective far out of her mind. It was bad enough the threat of the disgusting priest weighed heavily on each and every decision that was made. Every word spoken was one more word closer to the inevitable encounter with the mangled man and Maria knew that this soft, feeble coven would be ripped to shreds if someone didn't take the reigns.

Someone with sense.

The more and more the patriarch of the Cullen coven spoke, the less sense he displayed.

Maria turned and locked eyes with the boy, Edward. The mind-reader, her brain screamed at her, scarcely believing that such a thing could exist in their world.

The presence of Jasper's gift had always been enough of an annoyance back in the old days. There had been a period of time where she hadn't trusted any good mood of hers and had lashed out if she'd had an inkling that he might have used it on her in some way. He'd claimed innocence every time, but Maria could always sniff a lie out of the air.

She still couldn't believe he'd dared to use it on her the day prior. Maria hadn't been happy to see his tail between his legs as he'd walked away, head bowed. No, she'd been pissed that he'd done it in the first place. Furious that he'd forgotten one of her most important rules.

Don't fucking touch my emotions, ever.

Edward's glare intensified before he turned his head away from her angry gaze. Maria brought forth an image of one of Esteban's kills, and made sure to focus on the gargled shrieking of the armless, legless newborn they'd found writhing in the dirt after one battle.

The woman's head had been reattached, just slightly off center so that a gaping wound remained at the point where her neck and shoulder were supposed to be connected. Instead, venom pooled and oozed as the flesh tried to bridge the gap and keep the body alive. The throat had been split and her neck had been snapped, making it so that her head was turned at a twenty degree angle, away from where it was supposed to be.

The flesh had healed over, and the woman had wheezed in agony, crying out words that didn't make sense in Spanish or in English.

Maria focused especially hard on the memory of the gasping, disgusting sound the woman made when the Major had pressed his boot against her neck and hauled her torso up, silencing her.

Maria watched Edward grimace and move further away from her and she wanted to laugh. That had been a kind one. A mercy kill. That mangled woman had been a victim of Esteban's tamer days. It had been after he'd marked Maria's arm, but before he'd started experimenting with bodies more.

Now knowing that he was likely still listening in, she pulled that memory to the forefront again and replayed it. She hated this memory, and she hoped that Edward could sense that, too.

Esteban had smiled up at her as he gripped her wrist in a vise hold and the battle raged on around them. The man that had hooked a leg around her thigh shifted slightly and Maria gritted her teeth as it pulled her closer to the ground, spreading her knees further apart. The second man's face was close to hers, his left arm wrapped beneath her left armpit and snaked around to grip the back of her neck, locking her in tight.

His other arm held her tightly around the ribs and his eyes were ravenous as he panted beside her, pressed up against her back. Maria could only focus on the teeth inches from her neck and his hand already gripping it firmly. She could barely spare a thought for the way his obvious erection pressed hard into her back. All of her fury was stemming from the fact that they'd pinned her and were fucking toying with her.

Then, Esteban had produced a tooth from his pocket. Then, he'd split her skin in two. Then, as she was staring in horror—the pain hadn't made itself known just yet—he leaned forward and pressed his mouth against her wrist. His tongue pressed its way inside of the crack in her arm and he'd slowly dragged it up.

That was when Maria had started to scream.

"Stop it," Edward turned and snapped at her, but Maria smiled when he couldn't meet her gaze, when his words lacked the anger that had been so loud just seconds before. The glare he now shot toward his mate, who was sitting at Alice's side in the den, was far more antagonistic than what Maria had received.

She only grinned wider as she witnessed this, but Edward did not turn back toward her.

Well, she could terrorize him more after they sorted their plans.

They were currently discussing the pros and cons of leaving the house as a group. Carlisle wanted to see if there was a way to lure Esteban's cult elsewhere. He tried to reason that it would give them the upper hand. They wouldn't be sitting ducks, he claimed.

The Major shook his head where he stood a few feet from his current, ridiculous leader. Maria still could not believe that he followed the example of this spineless, pathetic man. The animal blood surely had negative cognitive effects that they hadn't properly addressed.

The Major had always been more useful as a soldier. He wasn't a natural leader. He needed someone to tell him what to do in order to satisfy his desire to prove loyalty. Maria supposed he'd been a wandering dog after he'd left. Carlisle had just been the coward who'd managed to leash him.

"No," she spoke because of course the Major would only silently shake his head. God forbid he speak up against the idiot now that their next steps were being designed. "You know this area best. You always have the upper hand when you're familiar with the terrain. Do not do something as simple as dragging your coven to unknown areas." Maria knew just how unforgiving mountainous terrain could be, especially if it was unfamiliar.

"I can't stand for any more loss of life," he spoke and the room fell into a grave silence. Maria understood they'd lost people. She understood that those losses meant something to them. She understood that because of their lifestyle, each loss crippled them. Maria understood that the more losses they faced, the less useful they would become.

Maria clenched her jaw and waited for a better excuse.

"The further we get from town, the more lives we can save."

The gears in her brain came to a grinding halt.

"You better not be talking about the humans." Her words were spoken slowly, as if she wasn't entirely sure what was happening. Surely, he had to be joking. Unfortunately—frustratingly—Maria knew this man was not joking.

"We have a responsibility to these—"

"You have a responsibility here!" Maria was nearly aghast with this warped morality. "Forget the humans! If you try to spare them your own coven will die in their place! Is this really that hard of a decision for you to make?"

No one else spoke in the silence. Maria didn't know if she was grateful or resentful of that. If another Cullen spoke up in defense of Carlisle's words it would send her into an even bigger fit, and surely there was zero chance that they would ever speak up in defense of her. No matter how reasonable her ideas were.

"I'm not sure if you realized," she kept her words slow, knowing that the instant she truly lost patience her words would fall out in a flurry and the Cullens would have to accept them as they flew: English or Spanish or whatever language she decided to shout in. "But I have mouths to feed. Namely, my own." She cocked her head to the side, "Will you be forcing us to travel far in order to feed?" The question was sarcastic.

His answer was genuine. "If you must, yes. I can't jeopardize the lives of the humans in this town"

Maria was going to tear her hair out. An indignant shriek erupted out of her. "You are a ridiculous, foolish man! Your jokes fall on unamused ears, Carlisle Cullen."

"I cannot allow the murder of innocents."

"But you will allow the murder of your coven? Of your allies?"

"Watch it," Rosalie warned from somewhere behind her.

"I will not!" Maria stomped her foot and the stone beneath her shattered; whatever carefully laid foundation for the tiles beneath their feet cracked (wood, by the sound of it) and the floor on the side of the kitchen that she stood on slanted toward her. One of the chairs inched toward her slightly and then stopped on its own, its screech loud in the relative silence. "Your friends are being murdered and you act as if the humans matter just as much!" She tore her eyes away from Carlisle to plant them on Edward, "I do not know why I have to be the one to say this, but they resolutely do not! Your coven is next unless you stop this."

"We will protect our family," Carlisle's words were firm, unyielding. Maria almost looked to the Major in that moment but she was so aghast that she continued staring at the man that was looking down at her as if she were one of his 'pretend-children'. She would make him regret ever using such a patronizing tone with her.

"With what army?" she asked. Her expression cooled as she blinked up at him. "Oh, yes, my army. You need me and what little muscle I have. I'll be damned if I'm 'forbidden' from both feeding and supplementing our numbers." She pointed at her chest as she leaned forward, sneering now. "This is a southern army general, Cullen. This is my game and if you want to stand half of a chance in hell at winning it, or, shit, surviving with half of your family intact, you better follow my lead or you're all fucked."

He was silent then, and his sad eyes made Maria angrier. She itched to smack the piteous expression off of his pale face.

"My army needs bodies. My army needs blood. If I don't get both then you are all good as dead. I don't know how many other ways I can phrase this." She finally turned to the Major. "Can you not translate in a way that makes sense to him?"

Carlisle ignored her words to the Major. "We have friends that we can call."

"So you can sacrifice them next? A bold move. Do you enjoy self-inflicted martyrdom? So does Father Esteban." She grabbed the chair that had slid down the floor toward her. She pulled it out and sat herself in it and crossed her legs. It skidded a few more inches toward the damage she'd put in the floor but Maria sat still, her expression anticipative. "Go on then. Call in your favors."

Alice had told her all about their encounter with the Volturi, filling in so many important blanks for her and giving her a near-complete understanding of what had landed them in the mess in the first place.

Maria's eyes flashed back toward Edward and she wanted to scoff at his scowl. His mate's choice to send away their offspring made enough sense to her. Perhaps he also desired his loved ones in danger. More injury and death would only feed whatever complex he'd picked up from the man who had sired him.

Maria quirked an eyebrow when the boy did not react with the anticipated overdramatic offense to her thoughts. Ugh. Whatever.

"Don't wait for me. Call your friends! Damn them to potential death, again." She crossed her arms over her chest and cocked her head to the side. "They were all animal eaters, too, right?" Then, she pointed a finger toward the garage. "Peter got a meal recently, I know that much. Son of a bitch had fresh strength in him when I found him."

"Maria—"

"I do not entertain hypocritical men." Her words were like ice. Maria did not entertain men, period.

Maria turned toward Carlisle's mate, Esme, as that thought flickered through her mind. The woman stood close to Carlisle, within arms reach surely, but far enough that Maria was able to pretend that the infuriating man wasn't there.

It was just Maria, and his sensitive wife.

Maria grinned.

"Father Esteban is a man of the cloth, you know?" she spoke conversationally and watched with delight as Esme stiffened at being directly addressed. Carlisle stepped closer to Esme but it was too late; she was trapped beneath Maria's attention. It was easy to ignore the man and speak to Esme. "I do not say that to mean anything other than what it means. We don't call him 'Father' to be funny. He was a Priest—he would tell you that he still is, as if he isn't everything that his Catholicism tells him is evil and demonic—" Maria clicked her tongue for good measure, "who focused on ah, fixing the population. On creating productive members out of the native savages whose villages he and the Church and their country invaded. Of course, his mission was decades before my time.

"There was a war going on when I was changed, too, you know," she gestured toward the Major without looking at him. "It was always easiest for vampires to feed where blood was already being spilled."

She paused and her smile fell from her face, leaving a grimace in its place. The entire house was listening to her now. Not even the Major had been privy to that fact. Any hint of curiosity surrounding her origins had been met with anger and open hostility. The Major had never asked because of it.

Maria would not elaborate now. She skipped ahead to the information that was pertinent to their survival. "The first time we met him on the battlefield he was unorganized. It was an easy win for us. They'd crossed into our lands loud and brash and we'd killed seven of their newborns before he thought to call them back. He'd been just as ugly then," she leaned toward Esme as she spoke this last bit. "Just a dreadful looking man. Whoever got a hold of him before us must have made ribbons out of his face at some point. He barely has a nose." Then, she gestured toward where the Major stood on the opposite side of Carlisle, "Esteban makes this one here look perfectly acceptable."

Esme's reply was quick, yet uneasy. "Jasper is perfectly acceptable." Maria relished the sight of her so uncomfortable at exchanging words. It wasn't uncertainty or lack of belief in the words she spoke that caused Esme's voice to shake. Maria was not the Major, but she knew fear when she saw it.

Maria laughed politely. "We'll agree to disagree then." Her smile was just as polite. They were just two women exchanging gossip across the kitchen from one another. Maria scooted closer to the table and rested her chin in her hands. She continued speaking. "Father Esteban was not so easy to push back the second time around, as I've already explained. I'll give the Major credit where it's due: these limbs of mine are all still attached since he paid close attention during that battle. I didn't realize the extent of what Esteban allowed his newborns to do on the battlefield until the fourth time we fought."

Maria leaned forward and lowered her voice. Just two women, her and Esme, exchanging stories. Her grin widened. "His newborns are unlike anything I've ever seen. He does something that I can't help but admire and he's able to bend them to his will with such precision. They're all staunch believers before they're changed; he picks his cult quite carefully. Even the ones he nabs from more secular areas are controlled with just a couple homilies and a few meals. I suppose though," Maria sighed and half shrugged, sitting back further in the chair, "that after three days of burning you can convince anyone they're Christ-like. The 'blood of Christ' jokes gave me a good laugh back in the day when I first made the connection. He's an utter monster in every sense of the word, but I'll be damned if he doesn't know how to brainwash his armies.

"They're not just prepared to die, they are all willing to die. I've still never seen anything like it. Ask the Major. It's uncanny the way they surrender themselves to death when it's clear the fight is won. Sometimes they sacrifice themselves without a fight. Those are usually the ones who aren't marked."

Maria turned in her chair and finally glanced at the solemn room behind her. Alice still sat on the couch, flanked now by Bella and Rosalie. Peter stood close to them, staring at Maria with barely concealed fury. He had been lucky they'd never fought Esteban when his precious dead mate had been with them.

It almost felt cruel to now tell them all what would've become of his little Charlotte if Esteban or his men had gotten a hold of her.

Maria locked her eyes on Alice when she spoke. "Recite again, the mark on the men's foreheads you saw?" Alice looked toward her with confusion for a split second and Maria watched as the words formed on her lips and then paused.

The realization as it bloomed across Alice's face was a beautiful, satisfying sight. Maria smiled when Alice spoke. "They weren't x's…"

"I would call it a small 'T'," she grinned at Alice and then winked. "Good girl," Maria cooed as she turned back around and locked her eyes on Esme's once more. "Each of his disciples is marked with a crucifix, carved into their face." Maria gestured to the library far off behind her, where she knew there were at least two crosses hanging from the wall. "You know how those men of God can be," she whispered, as if handing over a secret. As if exchanging a joke.

The wife of a pastor's son did not laugh nor speak, so Maria did.

"They are the product of their faith gone rotten. Soured with the justification of the atrocities they commit. He specializes in torture. There is no other way to describe what he does. I'm certain he has some form of religious excuse for it. No real God would excuse it. I have watched him cut behind the ears of the faces of my newborns, only to reach forward, grasp the ear, and tug forward. Did you know there is a way to remove flesh from what remains of what you could call a 'skull' in our bodies? Do you know the sound of a man as he chokes on venom? Or the sound a woman makes when the slit in her throat is pulled back just for a match to get dropped down her esophagus?"

Maria felt her eyebrow twitch when she watched Esme reach out for Carlisle. He stepped closer to her quickly and placed an arm around her shoulders, then his other hand reached forward to grasp her hand. Maria did not spare his face a glance. She could already tell, just with her peripheral vision, that he was as unhappy as she'd ever seen him.

Good. She'd found a button to press. That meant it was time to press it harder.

"The Major, unlike myself, was able to escape being maimed by this madman. He was never much of an easy target to begin with, as big and mean as he is. They attacked both men and women, of course. In war you aren't looking for anything other than an opening to rip into the first neck you can." She knew that this wasn't something that any of them could relate to, living the peaceful lives that they did, but they had to get used to the idea.

Maria had to be the one to desensitize them if the Major didn't want to. Of course, she still wanted to demand the input she knew he wouldn't provide.

"The fourth time we met on the battlefield went similarly to the second and third times. He continued focusing more on getting a hold of bodies he could mangle than on killing them point-blank. I believe it was this time or the next time that they took one of our newborns with them when they retreated. Not sure what his fate was but if it was anything like what we eventually discovered Esteban was capable of, I imagine he suffered a slow, awful death.

"We were completing cleanup, having already called our people toward retreat. Cleanup rarely takes long. It's a rather neat, organized affair, if you didn't know. Very peaceful after a victory. Not always quiet, and it wasn't this time. We found a couple of leftovers." Maria finally looked toward the Major and held his gaze for a few seconds. "The member of Esteban's cult didn't even attempt to fight back when the Major strode over and tore his head off. Maybe it was the brainwashing or maybe it was because he was still fucking the half-dead girl beneath him. He'd torn her throat out at some point so her screams were more," she waved a hand slightly, "raspy than they typically are." The Major did not react to her words, so she turned her head back toward Esme. Esme was staring back at Maria with an indecipherable expression then, her eyes the only part of her face that betrayed any emotion. Terror, perhaps.

"Esteban promises them Heaven. He tells them that there is no sin they can commit that will condemn them to Hell since they were put on the Earth to purge it of evil. Do you know what happens when you give brainwashed men the holy immunity they're desperate for? You get men like Father Esteban and his 'disciples'. You get men who hurt not to kill, but just to commit the act. You get men who brandish themselves boldly and rape whatever bodies they can get their hands on. Men who sometimes don't care when you approach to kill them because they know that because of whatever Father Esteban has told them, they'll still be rewarded with the Kingdom of Heaven."

Maria did not tell them about how once she and the Major realized the pattern between Esteban's men's victims—they mostly got their hands on young, petite women—it became a part of their yearly routine to keep at least three or four smaller girls in rotation. It had been an annoyance to feed such weak bodies but the addition had been a strategic move on their part.

Every army needed cannon fodder.

She did not turn toward Edward but Maria was a bit surprised at the lack of a reaction from him. She thought that he would be raging at the idea that their beloved Jasper had once trained women alongside their soldiers, knowing that they were created to be sacrificed to the more feral men that populated these armies. The addition had been one of the more effective battle strategies they'd implemented in the nineteenth century.

It had fallen out of practice in the past sixty years. Something about modern day men finally learning to treat women less like property and more like people. It was an interesting human concept that Maria cared little to learn about. She'd always been more than what the men who met her thought she was.

There was still silence from the mind-reader. Interesting. Perhaps they all knew more about the Major's crimes than they'd lead on. Or, maybe only Edward was privy to these details that existed only in the Major's memory.

"Will you tell them about April '99?" Maria didn't turn toward the Major as she spoke to him. She knew he wouldn't tell them but thought that maybe he would surprise her. She waited three whole seconds before she resumed. "Fine then. I suppose you want me to frighten them. It'll do them some good."

Maria heard the noise of someone in the room behind her stand up and fought back the urge to turn and look. She was never one to let anyone approach from behind, but she'd been pushing down a lot of her most powerful instincts in the past few months. This wasn't much more difficult than playing nice with nine idiot men.

With the intensity that Edward's eyes fixed on whoever approached, Maria immediately knew it was Alice. Maria just ignored whatever freakish conversation they were probably having in their minds and continued on.

Esme was still frozen beneath both Maria's gaze and her words. Maria leaned forward in her chair.

"You can reattach limbs after they've been torn. The peaceful life you lead probably hasn't afforded you the opportunity to seize this information, but it's true. Important, too! I've watched the Major reattach that left arm of his so many times I thought it was truly detachable at one point." She was the only one who laughed. "You have to be careful, though. If you don't align it properly and give the muscle enough time to start mending, then you're taking a dangerous risk. The flesh only knows how to repair itself and it does the work swiftly. If you attach a limb incorrectly you'd better fix it fast or else you'll be forced to maim yourself to keep use of your appendage.

"Hm. What was her name, Major? I don't recall."

There was silence for two more seconds. He finally spoke, "Aurelia," and Maria smiled. The Major had always been good with names. He had once confided in her, in the respectful and subdued way he had at the beginning, of their importance to him. His investment in them was the entire reason they'd learned Esteban's name at all.

It was the reason she never used his.

"It was a rough, tiresome spring. Esteban continued to keep his bodies close to our borderlands and on certain nights when we thought they might risk another breach of our territory we would stick close, waiting. This particular event happened after another skirmish.

"I thought the girl had been killed in the fighting. She had been stronger than expected but not remarkable as far as the Major informed me. He knew better than I, of course." Maria leaned back in her chair then. "He also knew what her screams sounded like better than I."

"That's quite enough," Carlisle Cullen's voice was firm, but even as he stepped closer to try and shield Esme from Maria's gaze, she continued to talk.

"Mere details, I know! I'll get to the important details, let me do it. For two days and two nights we heard her scream while we waited to see if they would retreat back into their lands. Or if they'd stupidly attack again. The girl's screams were atrocious. Unrelenting. I can't say what they did to her during that time, but I can describe to you what we found at the end of the second night. We only knew that Esteban was gone because the screaming had stopped.

"Of course we were never fools. We checked the area and found what remained of her. She wasn't dead." Maria ignored when Alice walked fully into the room and stationed herself close to both Maria and Esme. She did not move to block Esme from Maria's sight, but Alice stood there, as if waiting for something.

Maria was excited to see what.

"They'd stripped the flesh away from the entire backside of her torso—how they managed, I still do not know. Her head had been removed, rotated forty-five degrees, and reattached. She couldn't speak. The link between her lungs and her neck had been severed; she just moved her mouth and tongue wildly. The noise it made was grotesque." Maria shuddered then, finding it just as disgusting even well over a hundred years later. "Naturally, her arms and legs had been removed. Where the arms went I do not know. The legs were split into pieces, pressed firm against the seeping flesh on the back, as if Esteban had taken lessons from the Chileans on how to create an imbunche. Flesh knows flesh; it reattached itself. Every piece of her flinched and twitched and tried to move the only way it knew how to. I do not know what the state of her mind was like when we finally removed her head and burned what was leftover, but her eyes were there. She'd been awake for either most or all of the torture they put her through." She nodded her head toward the Major again but did not turn to him. "You never did confirm if she was lucid when we found her. I'm guessing you could still feel her."

The Major did not speak. It only served to confirm Maria's suspicion.

She hummed, disgusted by the memory. "She was stripped naked. Every inch of her had been carved into. Mutilated. They'd violated her, too. You could smell it." Carlisle turned his back on Maria and finally moved himself between her and Esme and he was speaking in a voice far too low for Maria to hear over her own words. Whatever. She continued to speak. "His cruelty knows no bounds, it's true, but he is a monster of the old variety. He hates women almost as much as he hates the Major and me." She paused and pretended to look thoughtful as she watched Edward also move to stand in her line of sight, blocking Esme. His furious glare was easy enough to look past. Maria raised her voice then, wanting to ensure that her words were heard overtop of the sudden noisiness of the kitchen. "He will light your fingers like candles and burn you alive, and that would be the kindest way to go."

That was the moment that both Edward and Alice moved. They headed in opposite directions. Edward turned toward Esme and Alice turned toward her. Alice's expression was blank, not reacting to Maria's words the way Maria wished she were. In fact, Alice didn't appear to be reacting to anything. Maybe she was distracted by a vision, she wondered.

With that thought in Maria's mind she didn't even smack Alice as she grabbed her arm and pulled her onto her feet. Maria was grinning because a mere story could cause such an uproar. That was when she realized the noisiness she continued to hear was coming from the woman, Esme.

Her breathing was quick and panicked, as if struggling for breath. Which was stupid. They didn't need to breathe. The soothing words of Carlisle Cullen and the mutterings of his stupid mind-reading 'son' were nothing more than an irritant to Maria. The woman was weak because she was coddled like this.

The Major also walked over toward the cooing men and that was what made Maria snap.

"Bodies," she yelled over the chaos. "That is my one request. Hardly unreasonable and wholly necessary if I'm going to help keep your herd of 'children' alive, Carlisle Cullen. I will acquire myself and my men meals and I will obtain more bodies for my army." All traces of humor had long left her tone. She was violently serious as she rose her voice above the sound of the pitiful breakdown of the woman on the opposite end of the room. "Ask me again, when you want to know more about Father Esteban. When you want to know more about the holy man coming to send you all to hell in the name of his wretched god, I will be waiting. The tale I have told you is not the worst we have seen, but if I need to describe mutilated, violated newborns to force reason into your skulls I can start now."

"Maria," Peter had moved to stand behind Alice. If one more useless fumbling man stood between her and Esme Cullen, Maria swore she was going to blow this entire section of woods into smithereens. "You've made your point." His eyes were frozen over with a cool rage and Maria barely spared him a second glance. The fresh red in his irises just made her angrier.

They were fucking hypocrites.

"No, I don't think I have," Alice tugged on her arm again and Maria planted her feet firmly against Alice's pull to get her back into their measly little library across the house. The floor creaked beneath her feet again and Maria felt satisfied when she heard Alice's soft sigh as she stopped moving. Maria did not need to raise her voice to be heard by Carlisle Cullen, but she did it to force her words into his head like a dagger into whatever soft matter still lay inside of his empty, stupid head.

"You can self-flagellate all day long in the name of God or repentance or whatever. Meanwhile, this man will mangle your wife and force you to burn what's left of her. All of this is done for the same God that you grovel for forgiveness from." Alice stopped pulling her for a moment and then turned toward the back door. This time, Maria let herself be pulled. The promise of silence that the forest presented her almost soothed her. Well, not quite soothed. But it would be a nice reprieve from this harebrained bullshit.

Before she allowed herself to be ushered out of the house, she lifted her hands and caught the doorframe. The glass in the sliding door creaked and popped at the pressure; Maria was almost disappointed it didn't shatter.

Esme Cullen was being escorted from the room. Edward had an arm around the back of her and was steadily coaxing her forward. On her right side stood the Major. It took Maria a fraction of a second to realize what he was doing. It looked as if he had his hand tangled in the hair that fell down her back. He was pressing the tips of his fingers to the back of her neck; likely, Maria scoffed at the realization, forcing the idiot to calm down the only way he was capable of.

Ridiculous! Pathetic! Embarrassing!

She called Carlisle Cullen's name again, and was pleased to see a flicker of anger in his eyes when he turned back around to meet Maria's eyes.

"Either get some perspective or go buy an urn to put your dead fucking wife in when Father Esteban inevitably gets his hands on her."

Esme's stuttered breathing grew louder and Alice kept pulling at Maria's arm, her face strangely calm. Peter's hands pushed against Maria's back, forcing her into the backyard. She yanked her arm out of the psychic's grip and hissed away from Peter's unwelcome shove, turning on the both of them.

Maria's smile was gone from her face as she kept her eyes on Alice's own, almost-black stare. She gestured back into the house that they now stood several meters from. Esme Cullen's breakdown was loud enough for everyone to hear. "Something to look forward to." She spoke, dry amusement in her voice.

Alice half-shrugged and reiterated Carlisle Cullen's previous words, and Maria fought the urge to scoff. "We will protect our family." The words were quieter but just as assured as the ones spoken from the leader of their coven.

"With what army?" Maria's glare sharpened, her own words a repeat from her previous.

Alice's half-shrug turned into a casual gesture toward Maria. "Yours."

One of these days, Maria thought with a curious sense of relief, she was going to have to ask the Major where the hell he'd found her.

A/N: Listen, at this point you get chapters whenever you get 'em. Six months of regular updates better be enough for you guys to trust that I ain't leaving this fic unfinished. If you get them on time: great. If you don't: oops?

We still have a handful of chapters left in act 3. I'm sure you're well aware of by now, but please continue to heed content warnings for graphic depictions of violence, rape/non-con elements, major character death, and other sensitive subjects. Especially for the upcoming acts. Thanks for your favorites and follows; I'm content to see some of you are at least intrigued. Please let me know what you think.