CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX.
PENPAL
Baseball - Alice's big nefarious plan was… baseball. I glanced at La surreptitiously, wondering if she was even remotely interested in such a thing. She had been cackling about "vampire baseball" since we left the homestead, and when she put it that way I had to admit it sounded ridiculous.
There was a familiar black truck parked in front of La's house as we pulled around the corner. La was expecting her uncle later, but this wasn't his truck. Instantly alert, I slowed down and lowered the volume of the radio to see if I could hear anything strange.
"It's been fifteen minutes," a young male voice pleaded. "Please, let's just go!"
"No, there's a car now, let's see if it's her," a much older voice shushed.
I let the car slow to a crawl as I considered my options. It was Billy and Jacob Black and they were here to ambush La from the looks of it.
"This is ridiculous! She can date whoever she wants to - it's none of your business." Jacob said vehemently.
"Hush, they're here."
"What," I pulled the car to the curb by her driveway. "The fuck?"
"Is that Billy and Jacob?" La peered up the drive through the rain. "What are they doing here?
"I can guess," I remarked through my simmering anger. "And it's crossing the fucking line."
"They've come to warn me off," she surmised in a flat voice. "That is very much not okay. Let me deal with this."
Once I heard it again, I realized she'd stopped using that tool of disinterest with me some time ago. It gave me a brief flash of happiness to know she'd grown so comfortable with me, but just then Billy muttered, "She's brought it home with her. Hopefully, we're not too late."
"That's probably for the best," I said, instead of reacting to Billy's bullshit.
"Do you want to take the Abarth back?"
"No, it's faster for me to run," I tried to shake off the anger. "Get them inside so I can leave, please."
"You don't have to leave," she tried to say halfheartedly. It warmed my heart that she offered, but I wouldn't be leaving until the dogs did anyway. Besides, it was better if I didn't confront them like this.
"Of course I do. You've got to get ready for vampire baseball and better yet, prepare your favorite uncle to meet your new boyfriend." I forced a chuckle, eyes still locked on the men waiting on the porch.
Fury was gathering on Billy's face. The proprietary nature of it made me want to snarl. He didn't own her. He didn't get to have opinions about her future or dictate her choices. I leaned in to brush a kiss across La's lips. Billy gasped and gripped the arms of his chair so tightly they creaked. Noticing this, Jacob shuffled his feet in mute embarrassment.
"I'll see you soon, babe." I grinned at Billy, then opened the door by reaching across La to pull the handle. Another move to show Billy he needed to back off.
La released the seatbelt then jogged up the yard through the rain shouting out a "Hey, y'all" in greeting. She wasted no time herding them inside to the kitchen. As soon as the door was closed, I parked La's Abarth in the drive and shot out into the trees behind the house where I could listen in.
"He said he was going to be bringing some of his catch up," Billy was saying. I couldn't see La's face from my angle of view, but Billy remained impassive. "I thought he'd be here by now."
"We made plans for later," she offered shortly.
"I see," Billy said slowly, then without taking his eyes from La said to his son, "Jake, I think I saw that box of pictures Rebecca sent us in the car. Will you grab it?"
"Where is it?" Jake was fully aware this was a ploy, and for a moment I felt bad for him. He was the enabler here, but I could relate with the inability to say no to a parental unit.
"I think I saw it in the lockbox, you'll probably have to dig for it."
Jake dragged his feet to the front door, slowly opened it, then trudged toward the car. I snuck around the corner of the house, keeping to the shadows and behind trees so I could see what he did. After staring at the car dejectedly, he kicked a tire in frustration then sat in the driver's seat to scroll on his phone.
Inside, La was pointedly asking Billy to get around to the reason for his visit with very little success. I could just barely see her through the side window into her kitchen over the sink.
Out front, Jacob's scrolling was interrupted by a shrill ring. It was such a shock that his phone was ringing out loud, with an actual old-timey ring, that it took me a second to realize he'd sent it to voicemail. Almost immediately, it rang again. He sent it to voicemail then clicked it to silent mode.
"Kevin is one of my best friends," Billy was saying to La in the kitchen.
"I'm aware," La responded abruptly, voice seething. She wasn't bothering to pretend to play games.
Jake's phone went off a third time, buzzing in his hand. Instead of sending the caller to voicemail, he let it ring, throwing it into the passenger seat with a huff.
"I noticed you've been spending a lot of time with the Cullens," Billy continued. I tried to peer through the window to see him, but the angle was off from this side of the house and I could only see La's shoulder's stiffen.
"Yes." her response reflected her body language. It was so perfunctory, surely no one would have the audacity to force the issue. I nearly snuck back around the corner to watch the battle of wills unfold but paused when Jake's phone vibrated yet again. Four calls in a row? I wanted to rip the phone out of his hands to answer it myself.
"It may be none of my business…" Billy started and was cut off by La with a firm "Correct." I snickered and snapped my fingers in quiet support.
"What do you want?" Jake had answered the mysterious call. My head whipped toward him. He had the phone to his ear with one hand, the other was pressed into his temple, obscuring most of his face. I couldn't hear what the caller was saying with the windows of the truck rolled all the way up, but Jake was tense and unhappy.
"At La's with Dad," Jake told the caller. A pause, and then, "It's none of your business, but yes, Emmett was here. He's gone now."
The clink of mugs sounded from the kitchen as La presumably made two cups of tea. Jake hit the steering wheel with his fist. Startled, I snuck closer in an attempt to hear the other side of the conversation.
"I said, no, Sam! I don't want to have anything to do with your weird vendetta against a group of people I've never had a single problem with. I don't want to be here right now, and I don't want to get involved with your little gang. Leave me out of it! " Jake threw his phone onto the floorboard and took a huge shaky breath.
My jaw dropped slightly. Jake was clueless. I had to give it to him a little bit. He didn't know that vampires existed - but he certainly stuck to his convictions, and I appreciated his backing us up, unintentional as it might be. I imagined Esme probably had something to do with that support. She had a hell of a knack with people.
More interestingly, Jake didn't realize that this gang he referred to was comprised of dog-shifting nuisances and that he would be joining whether he wanted to or not. The last thing I noticed was that "gang" implied a full pack. How many wolves were on that reservation already? Had we underestimated the situation out there?
"You seem better informed than I expected." Billy grabbed my attention back toward the kitchen.
"I am," La stated flatly. From her tone, she was beyond over the conversation. "I may be better informed than you are right now."
"Unlikely," Billy threw back in the same tone. "But possible. Is Kevin as well informed?"
Alarm bells went off in my head. How much did Billy actually know? From the little he was saying, he was aware of both the gang on his reservation and that the Cullens were vampires, but how much did he know about what vampires actually are? I could only hope Carlisle was as well informed because I certainly wasn't.
My disinterest in Carlisle's stories was to blame for my ignorance. Since the wolves of the Quiluete people were presumably extinct, I didn't bother to care what they realistically were. What I remembered was sketchy; they were not exactly like the moon-dependant variety of London. These could shift at will, though their intense hatred for vampires remained the same, which was why I thought the Volturi hated them. According to Carlisle though, it might go deeper than that.
Jake smacked the steering wheel again and got out of the car to stand and stare morosely up at the spitting clouds.
"Of course not," Billy's question had broken La's hard veneer. Her response softened audibly as I snuck around to the back of the house where I could see into the more open window there. "What good would that do?"
"I don't like it but I think I have to agree." Billy's quick agreement surprised me with its rationality. His earlier anger made me expect a more vitriolic response. "Just think about what you're doing La. This could seriously hurt him."
"I know," La acknowledged sadly. "But it's my choice."
Subtext wasn't my forte. Had La had just outed her supernatural plans to this Wolf Dad? Ill-advised, for sure, but it sounded like she was completely aware that she would lose her family. In that case, what was driving her decision? It couldn't only be love for me. This was personal for her too.
"Don't do this," Billy, understanding this admission, tried to switch tactics into pleading but it was too late, Jake had arrived.
"There's no box of pictures anywhere in that truck," he busted through the front door unapologetically and made his way into the kitchen with purposeful noise.
The three made their goodbyes as I went back around to the side of the house to look for a good place to stick close to the truck. Jake's mood did not improve as he helped his father into the passenger seat.
"Why did we have to come here?" Jake asked plaintively. "Now La will never want to see me again."
"That is not what you should be worried about right now," Billy stated. Jake sighed and closed the door, walking around to the driver's side. "Have you talked to Sam?" Billy asked as soon as they were both safely locked inside the truck.
"Yes," Jake's jaw was clenched tight as he rolled down his window to let in the cool air. He threw the shifter into drive and pulled a deep U-turn. "I told you, everything he's saying is nonsense. It's scaring me. Asking me if I'm having mood swings, if I have a fever? What is that about?"
"It's important," Billy replied. It seemed to me he would have liked to say more, but wasn't able to find the words. Jake scoffed.
"Right," he mocked good-naturedly. "We have to protect the land, the Cullens are evil. Exactly like I said, cryptic nonsense, and the Cullens have done exactly nothing to have earned what you say about them."
"You don't know the whole story," Billy countered angrily. They pulled off down the road. I ran through the woods to their left, behind the houses, straining to hear them over the sound of the engine.
"Don't I?" Jake shot back. "Remember when I laid the bike down out off 29?"
There was no answer that I could discern with my distance.
"I almost died. Remember who found me?" Again, there was no discernable answer. "Right, it was Esme. She bound my leg and waited with me, the whole time talking to me, not letting me focus on my compound fracture. She waited how long? Until, wait remind me, who came to set it?"
This time I heard a gruff, "the doctor."
"Exactly, Dr. Cullen set my leg, gave me meds, didn't charge you a penny, and probably saved my life."
There was another moment of angry silence. Well I was right about one thing, at least. The funny part was, I did remember the day Jake was talking about. It was a few years ago, right after we settled in Forks. Esme had been sure Jake would either bleed out before Carlisle would get there or she would kill him herself. It never occurred to me that day would leave such a personal lasting impression on Jake.
We didn't see anyone from the tribe out very often, as a rule. The tribe members tended to stay well away from us, and we did our best to stay out of their way. Now that I thought of it, when we did see him, Jake always made sure to say hello to Esme and asked after her day. She'd had a soft spot for him ever since.
They were nearing an intersection I couldn't cross, but before I slowed down I heard one last little morsel.
"Just do me a favor, Jake," Billy said. "If you don't want to see Sam, go see Jared or Paul or Embry. They can answer your questions. And roll up your window - aren't you cold?"
Four. I skidded to a halt as they turned down a road that eliminated good coverage. There were four wolves at La Push. Six vampires living in town, four wolves close by, and one at risk of shifting at any moment - and that was just what I could pick up from the conversation. Were there more than that? Maybe the arrival of vamps and the re-emergence of wolves were connected? I let them go and headed to the homestead, mind-reeling.
"It's so weird you can't see them," I poked Alice's forehead. We were lying on the ground outside, ear to ear, feet kicked off in opposite directions. I'd just left Carlisle's office, where I informed him on everything I'd overheard. Since our plan was to take La out of state as quickly as possible, then out of the country before her transition, he assured us it wasn't something we needed to worry about. He tried to hide it, but I saw how the news left him pensive as we exited the study.
"I know," she scrunched her nose. "I don't like it one bit."
Drops of rain dotted our faces as we lay there. It felt nice; the cool little drops, the sponginess of the grass and moss. A breeze swirled past with the first scents of a storm on the way.
"Do you think their growing numbers have something to do with us?"
"It does seem rather convenient…" she mused. "I guess we can't know without asking them."
"Maybe we should."
Alice sat up to glare down at me severely. "No."
"Why?" I sat up to match her gaze. "It seems like we should be neighborly. Two monsters in the same twenty-five-mile radius? Shouldn't we be friends?"
"Carlisle tried that, remember?"
Hence the treaty. Which meant friendliness had worked to some extent, but I could see her perspective - it must be hard for her to trust something she couldn't see. I relented and returned to my position on the ground, remembering a day not too long ago when I was similarly prone in a snowbank with Tanya. I chuckled and turned to my side to find Alice still watching me warily.
"Why baseball?" I asked her.
"You love baseball," she retorted.
"But La doesn't," I laughed. "She calls any game involving forcefully airborne balls, 'sports-ball.'"
Alice grinned. "I thought it might be a natural way to put her and Esme together to talk while the rest of us are distracted."
"And possibly scare her off with our antics," I nodded, impressed. "Great plan."
"She should know what she's getting into," Alice giggled. Her gaze turned glassy with the far-off look I associated with her future-gazing. "She's going to have a great time."
She stretched her legs out long and twirled her feet, rolling her ankles leisurely, then paused, suddenly confused. I gave a mental shout for Edward before I remembered he was off on another errand.
"Munchkin?" I asked cautiously.
"It's the visitors," she said. Her fingers twitched like she wanted to draw something, but I had no pen or paper. "They're still closer to Bremerton than here, but I keep getting little flashes like they're somewhere else. I can't tell when that is. We'll just have to be alert, I guess."
She got to her feet and froze. I was up in a flash, peering into her vacant eyes. Her head tilted sideways, as though she were puzzling out what she was seeing.
Her vision cleared and she looked at me. "I just had the strangest vision of La. She was one of us, you were with her, and she was watching someone from a rooftop."
"What were we doing?"
"I don't know," she shook her head with eyes wide. "It looked like she was hunting."
"Hunting… humans?"
"Strange, right?" She shook it off. "It's too fuzzy to be something we need to worry about yet. Don't let it ruin your night. Shouldn't you be getting ready?"
With several hours left before I needed to pick La up, I certainly didn't need to be getting ready, but I left Alice alone to be with her visions and went in search of something else to do. The house was quiet without Edward at his piano, so I turned to the backup garage and pulled my beloved truck out of storage.
When we arrived in Forks I wrapped it to keep the dust out and parked it in the back of the garage, out of the way. The reveal made the meticulousness with which I'd bundled her up completely worth it. I swept the cover off to expose the bright cherry paint and supple black canvas. It was perfect - so perfect there was very little to clean. Instead, I focused on making it human safe by replacing the shoulder and lap harnesses I had removed when I bought it and ensuring the passenger seat was secure. She was a thing of beauty, this Jeep. The paint still looked as fresh as the day I had applied it, but I polished it until the red gleamed despite the gloomy weather.
Edward caught me later as I was getting dressed. The way he slinked into my room was reminiscent of our old days together; when he would come back from his scouting missions with news of who we would be hunting for the evening. He sat down on the couch where I had been cuddling La earlier that very day and crossed his legs to wait for my attention.
"What's up, bud?" I pulled a shirt over my head and bent to pull on fresh socks.
"We have gotten some news," he motioned for me to sit with him. "But it seems wildly unrealistic, so I can't confirm the veracity."
That definitely seems like a normal thing to say. I grabbed a pair of boots and joined him on the couch to put them on. "What have you got?"
He smirked at my jab. "Not very much and simultaneously too much, I'm afraid."
I gave him a flat look. Out with it.
"I have been corresponding with a contact in Italy over the last several months," he conceded.
The fountain pens?
"A friend of a friend sort of thing." He smiled self-consciously, and I decided I would absolutely be getting whatever juicy tidbit he was hiding out of him as soon as I could focus on it. "I asked if there was any known information about beings referred to as the il Divenire. This contact warned me that I shouldn't ask too openly about any of this, but that they would send along information as soon as they could."
The trip to Seattle, I thought, to show I was following along.
"Yes. I was given a tablet loaded with all of the information this contact had access to. There is a lot of speculation, most of it is circumstantial, but a few things stuck out." He took a breath as if bracing himself. "The first is that the il Divenire definitely exist, and there is some evidence to suggest they exist on purpose."
"On purpose?" I repeated, uncomfortable with this idea that any of our kind served a purpose in natural order. As though there could be anything natural at all about what we were.
Edward, following my thoughts shook his head. "The Volturi wanted to create a stronger selection of humans to be candidates for vampirism."
I stared at him, flabbergasted and speechless.
"We think the Volturi were born more than a thousand years ago," he continued. "Back then, humans with talent existed, but they were difficult to track down and their talent was unpredictable. Some reports indicate they were also comparatively weak. For example, Aro's talent is that he can read thoughts, but only through touch. They wanted more, and so sought to breed particular talents into the population. Under supervision, this could give them their choice of the strongest vampires."
There were several large holes in the practicality of this undertaking. Foremost, this selective breeding could easily create their own nemesis. I opened my mouth to say as much but he held up a hand to forestall my reasoning.
"Perhaps it was vanity, but one can see why a monarch set on holding their thrown would endeavor to collect a strong loyal army."
"I don't know," I couldn't wrap my head around this. If it was true, the project would have been vast, and enormously difficult to keep track of.
He seemed to agree with this sentiment. "At first, from what we can tell, it was local to their provinces. They could easily keep track of family lines and help with the most advantageous marriages - remember, they were, and to some extent still are, benefactors to their community. For many years, the Volturi were able to hold on to this effort by keeping within the confines of Italy, perhaps reaching out to bring other powerful families in, but always keeping them under thumb.
"Some would leave, naturally, but this was not entirely problematic for them until the Industrial Revolution. Now came the ease of transportation overseas. In the last two centuries, travel has become not only easy, and affordable, but commonplace. The bloodlines they created were spreading slowly over the millennia, but now they are spreading globally at an alarming rate - they no longer have control over who is breading, where, or what talents arise if any at all."
"But we're still so rare," I said. "Could it even be called a success?"
"That is where things become murkier," he sighed. "As these talents popped up in different corners of the earth, other formidable covens were created, and other powerful vampires discovered what the Volturi knew all along. For instance, there is a region in Africa where an entire coven can control the elements and one in Ireland that can control a supernatural vocal pitch. Specific to our research, we discovered a notable scientist in England whose studies of il Divenire became the blueprints for their ideal creation."
"William Cowper," I guessed.
Edward made a motion with his hand to confirm. "Just so. He was quite detailed in his studies, which were based on a similar text by an Italian surgeon. From his writings, we were able to corroborate much of what our contact sent over."
Your feather-quilled friend? I grinned, mostly to break the tension while my mind raced.
He made another motion with his hand, this one, vaguely rude. "All this being said, much of what we have discovered is simply confirmation of long suspicions."
For a moment I sat quietly, mulling over everything he had told me. "It seems like it's sort of a secret hidden in plain sight."
"My feelings exactly," he said. "What does it matter if some of us are particularly well adapted? It seems as natural as it can be that there would be some sort of scale on which each individual would fall."
"Then why all the secrecy?" I demanded before it clicked. When Jasper's friends had come to visit one of them told us the answer. Charlotte. 'They are hunted.' "Did she mean the Volturi?"
"That is the last piece I was able to collect of a much vaster puzzle," he paused as if trying to come up with the right words. "My contact has reason to believe the Volturi are no longer running a breeding program, having switched their macabre operation to one focused on collection. Their agents are sent to suss out rumor from fact and bring the talented people they find home."
"Didn't Peter say something happened in St. Louis?"
"He did."
"One of the Volturi scouts is currently in the States." I let out a low whistle.