TW: Panic Attack, Panic Disorder, PTSD

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN.

VISITORS

My truck was the best purchase I had ever made. The off-roading tires devoured the pavement as it grumbled deliberately down the road. Sure, Alice's Porsche was trendy, sure, Edward's GTI was fast, and Esme's Aston sleek - but this… This was fun. It would consume Alice's Tweety Bird-looking car quicker than Sylvester on the hunt.

The rain began in earnest as I pulled onto La's street, but Alice had assured us it would pass in favor of an atmospheric storm shortly. Kevin's truck was parked on the road leaving plenty of room to park behind the Abarth. It was akin to setting a monster truck behind a toy. Inside, I could hear La combatting embarrassment as Kevin questioned her in great detail about the man coming to collect her. I grinned at the sheepish nature with which she described our date.

Partially to save her more embarrassment, I knocked and listened as she hurried toward the door. There was only time for a brief introduction before she ushered me back out and away from Kevin's prising eyes. It was barely enough time for me to register his reaction to meeting a vampire, or rather, lack thereof.

I watched for any sign of discomfort. Kevin maintained a pleasantness without pretense or fear. He was naturally curious about the man who had convinced his niece to attend a sports game, but not suspicious. There was no dilation of his eyes, no pausing, no fear scent.

Technically, there was not yet a way to know if this was a Quileute trait or an il Divenire one. Either way, had this interaction happened before we discovered the likelihood of these sorts of things running in the family I might have been surprised. As it stood, it registered as barely more than a confirmation of an oddity.

After buckling the human safely into the passenger seat, we made our way out toward the trail heads. Her scent filled the car, deliciously pungent with the rain. I kissed her, and wanted to keep kissing her - maybe forget about the baseball altogether - but once we turned off the pavement onto the old, disused maintenance track I became distracted by the focus needed to safely navigate the muddy, broken path.

La laughed and hooted along with me through dips and rain-slicked tire ruts, even pointing out a particularly deep divot created by an over-long root system jutting out of the ground. I gunned into it as mud spattered over the windshield and canvas in a spectacular spray.

The cackle that came out of La could have put the Wicked Witch of the West to shame if it wasn't for the pure elation that accompanied it. I'd never heard her make such a sound before and realigned my goals to be sure to win one as often as I could.

With the fun we were having, it didn't take as long as I would have liked for us to near our destination. I parked in a makeshift clearing and helped La unclip the harness that she pulled at with a good-natured, but bewildered harrumph. Her cheeks were still flush with laughter; she was breathless and grinning and perfectly edible.

When I reached to pull her out of the car, she wordlessly stood on her toes and looped her arms around my neck. I took the opportunity to kiss her, unable to help myself. She answered in kind, hands immediately tangling into my hair, scent automatically deepening the way it had the night before. She licked my upper lip deftly like she was tasting a candy. I groaned into her, tightening my grip around her waist and kissing her deeply. I started to lift her to the wheel well when I realized what I was doing and stilled, raising my hands up in defeat.

Slowly, she came to her senses and disentangled herself, now breathless for a different reason.

"You are going to be the death of me," I told her.

"Not unless death-by-female is the one way you can die," she quipped and cackled again.

"Only one way to find out," I threatened, and swooped her up to run through the trees toward the family. Esme was ready for us. She met us near the tree line of the clearing, adeptly taking La under her wing.

In true Alice fashion, the game was announced with an ominous clash of thunder. I left La in Esme's care and threw myself into the game, all of us trying to outpace Edward's deadly combination of cheat and ridiculous speed. With half my attention on La, I didn't perform as well as usual, but it didn't matter. This whole plan was mostly just an opportunity for La to see what our family dynamic was like. Carlisle and Esme would sit her down for their "talk" afterward.

Alice, on the mound, was readying a pitch for Carlisle when she froze and gasped, hands going limp at her sides. The ball dropped to the ground and rolled away only coming to rest near home plate. My first look away from Alice was to La, who was still safely by Esme's side, the second was to Edward who sprinted toward me.

"The visitors heard the game, they're on the way, ETA five minutes. The vision is unsettled - keep your head, let Carlisle handle this."

Unsettled? What the fuck did that mean? Feeling a sense of overwhelming dread, I flew to La, placing her in the crook of my arm.

"Alice?" Esme called over to Alice quietly.

"I didn't see—I couldn't tell," Alice was gripping her hair frantically. Jasper led her over to us with one hand behind her back and one under her elbow. Even from where we stood I could see her gaze was glassy as she looked at a flurry of images no one else could see.

"What is it, Alice?" Carlisle made a meager attempt at breaking the spell.

"They were traveling much quicker than I thought," her head whipped one direction, then another. "I can see I had the perspective wrong before," she murmured, but that couldn't be right. She had seen them out by Bremerton only this afternoon, and not headed in this direction at all. Something else must have happened.

"What changed?" Jasper asked.

"They heard us playing and it changed their path," she said, but I caught the brief look she shot at Edward.

"How soon?" Carlisle turned to Edward. He must have caught the look as well but was already in triage mode. We could discuss what was missed later.

"Less than five minutes," he focused on the direction from which they would come as though it helped him hear them. "They're running because they want to play." He frowned and almost opened his mouth to say something else, but Carlisle was already moving on.

We quietly discussed our best course of action speaking too quickly for La to hear or understand us. We couldn't risk triggering a hunt, so fleeing was not an option, but since there were only three, fighting our way out was one if it came to it. I rejected that plan against my personal inclination - fighting would be the least safe for the human.

I never wanted La near any of this and for a moment I couldn't believe my own stupidity. Bringing her out here when I knew there were visitors on the peninsula was an insane risk. Of all the stupid choices I'd ever made, this would always top the list and haunt me for the rest of my days.

Ultimately, we decided to stay, to try to minimize La's visibility and importance, hope they wouldn't notice, and move on. Carlisle was a particularly skilled diplomat. If anyone could convince them to leave peacefully it was him. We chose new positions and would pretend to keep playing, each of us keeping close to home base by hitting low ground balls and walking the bases.

As Esme departed for her new player's position she gripped Edward's arm. "Are they thirsty?" she asked, so low and quiet I nearly missed it. Edward shook his head and took off to the far side of the field. We resumed our game, hitting the balls low and short as we planned. The laughter was gone, all of us tense and anxious.

"Stay behind me, and be ready for me to carry you out of here," I had taken up the catcher's position, placing La securely behind me.

She gulped but nodded. "It's those visitors you told me about earlier, isn't it?"

"Yes, stay very still, and very quiet." I directed her, hoping she would just do what I said and not question it. The visitors would be upon us at any minute. "Do not move from my side. Pull your hair down around your neck, put your hood up."

She quickly shook her hair out of its roll and pulled the masses of it down around her shoulders, tucking the ends into her jacket. Her hood came up next. She pulled on the strings to tighten it around her face.

"What did Esme ask Edward?" She whispered it, but it felt like she was shouting to the world; I'm human! Come get me!

"Whether they were thirsty," I answered with a frown. Hopefully, it would help that they weren't, but my gut was in knots. Something was telling me that we were in for a fight no matter what we attempted to prevent it.

"I'm so sorry, La," They would be upon us soon. I wanted her to know, just in case. "It was so stupid to expose you like this. This is what I've been trying to avoid. I'm so sorry."

"Fuck you, Emmett," she tried to sound flippant, but I could hear the shake in her voice. "This was my choice too."

Edward alerted us of their arrival by stopping in his tracks and focusing his attention toward the east. He made a very small motion with his left hand to signal us to gather. I shoved La more securely behind me and took up a nearby aluminum bat which I started to tap with my fingers eliciting a hollow metallic noise at a regular rhythm.

Three figures emerged from the dense line of trees on the other side of the clearing. They were in a tight formation, one ahead of the other two. Without an audible word, the one in the lead slowed a step so another figure could move forward.

This one was tallest of the three but not by much. His dark hair was swept back from his face, landing somewhere between his jaw and his shoulder. He had deeply olive-toned skin and dark depthless brown eyes ringed with red. As they approached they closed their ranks to push this one forward. He looked openly curious, but friendly, with a large amiable smile.

The woman to his left could have been a fairy creature straight from the stories. She looked the way I imagined a wood nymph to look; slight of frame, quick, clever face, and billowing wild hair, tangled with leaves and bits of tree branch. As they approached, her glance flicked from each of us in turn, then darted around the clearing. She was twitchy and seemed ready to bolt on a dime.

The last one was completely unassuming. He was rather average in height with a bland face paired with sandy, unmemorable hair, and a medium build. His eyes were a light brown color that would have been as bland as the rest of him had his pupils not been oddly dilated. The red ring around his pupils that marked him as a human-sustained vampire was stretched to nearly overtake his pale irises.

The three of them together were worse for wear in appearance. Each of them wore sun bleached, severely weathered clothing that was torn in several places, though this leader seemed to be slightly better off than the other two. None of them wore shoes, which was a common enough trait among nomads as vampires had no real need for them.

The leader introduced himself to Carlisle as Laurent, explaining they were interested in playing ball with us. He pointed to his companions and named them, Victoria and James, but made no remark about why they were in such an isolated part of the country to begin with.

Carlisle responded in kind, introducing the family as one coven, and throwing La's name, as Delilah, smoothly in the middle to avoid drawing attention to her. La's hand was at the small of my back, a chunk of my shirt balled into her fist. She trembled and fought to keep her breathing even. I listened to her heart rate increase and matched my drumming on the baseball bat to cover it.

The newcomers did not seem overly interested in us at all. Their gazes slid off La and Alice and barely touched on Esme or Jasper. As my focus slid from one to the other, I realized Jasper must be working very hard to turn their attention away from specific members of our party. I couldn't risk glancing his direction but three like these before us would be overly cautious of approaching a larger coven. They would have noticed an aggressively battle-scared member of an opposing group of predators straight away. Especially the little red-headed woman. Her clever eyes were narrowed and continued to flick from one face to another as though she was still considering whether to flee.

While Carlisle schmoozed with Laurent, adeptly talking them into joining the family at the house, the third companion grew more bored. James' gaze drifted from one face to the next without interest and without the same clever quickness that Victoria exhibited. He had a lazy confidence that set my teeth on edge.

As his gaze swept over her, Alice stiffened noticeably. Edward almost simultaneously shifted closer to me, coming nearly shoulder to shoulder and effectively blocking James' access to La completely.

There were no obvious changes in Laurent's coven, but behind me, La's breath hitched. My shirt cinched around my neck as her grip tightened. She trembled uncontrollably, the fabric she clung to shaking visibly. I did my best to cover the stuttering of her heart but soon after, Alice gave another minute gasp that set Edward's attention zeroing on James.

A very slight, but inevitable, change in the direction of the wind pushed La's scent toward the newcomers who turned as one to face La. Jasper's support snaped from the group to focus on Alice alone, who suddenly became very uninteresting, while the rest of us would just as suddenly become much more intimidating.

James' gaze settled on La, barely visible between myself and Edward. She was hyperventilating, breaths coming in short gasps as she stared at James. The newcomer smiled with hungry, evil delight.

"Kala!" he fell into a hunter's crouch as though he would spring through me and Edward to get to her.

Who the fuck is Kala? I thought, dumbfounded, but I managed to react instinctively, snarling a warning. La fell backward only for Alice to catch her and pull her into a huddle behind me, shifting back a pace. Edward matched James' pose to my left, feinting from side to side as James tested our resolve.

Carlisle continued to try diplomacy with their leader, but I kept my focus on James whose satisfaction was growing in smugness. Laurent was aghast, unable to wrap his head around why we would have a human in our midst. His continued rebuttals and exclamations were only feeding my fury.

"She's mine!" I roared at him. James stood from his crouch, considering Edward's reflexes that were almost too quick. James narrowed his eyes at him, then at me, as if assessing our ability to stop him.

His features reset into an expression of benign curiosity as though he hadn't just been threatening us. I was not fooled. His eyes never left La who was being pulled backward by Alice to allow more room for Edward and I to maneuver. I heard her stumble and reached my hand backward in silent demand. She placed her trembling fingers in mine and held on tightly.

James saw this and smirked, smile growing feral. Edward maintained his footing in front of us, continuing to mirror James' every move.

"We would like to accept your invitation, and we will, of course, not harm the girl. We have already agreed not to hunt in your range." Laurent was saying to Carlisle. James exchanged a look with the female and smiled wider. He would be hunting La regardless of what Laurent was promising.

Carlisle nodded severely and gave Edward a long look who silently acknowledged. "I'll show you the way," he invited the three to join him. "Esme, Jasper, come with me."

Edward and Alice closed ranks around us as I pulled La into my arms. She had completely lost control of her breathing and wasn't responsive to her name. I picked her up just as she lost consciousness from lack of oxygen.

And so, we ran, flying through the trees toward the Jeep. Edward used his increased speed to scout ahead while Alice fell back to guard the rear. La flopped uselessly in my arms try as I might to hold her steady.

"Where are they?" I shouted to Edward who was racing ahead through the night.

"They are with Carlisle," he called back as he reached the clearing where we'd parked the car ahead.

"He's going to wait for a good opportunity to shake them then circle back," Alice added. "We're going to make it to the truck, but he's going to track us."

We busted through the tree line as La stirred. "La, baby? Are you with me?"

"Put me down," she muttered. I looked to Alice who took up my place as I darted around the car to leap into the driver's seat. La stumbled away, fell to her knees, and promptly vomited. Alice dropped to her knees beside La, sweeping back her hair and pressing her hands to her cheeks and neck.

"How did he find me?" I heard La moan from her fetal position on the ground. I froze, she knew him. She knew James.

Up until that point, I thought a new group of unfriendly vampires had caused her terror. The first reasonable response to the horrorshow she'd been dropped into when she moved here. I should have known better. La never reacted the way I expected her to, least of all to anything supernatural.

I turned wide eyes to Edward who looked sick. He was watching her with something like rage and astonishment intermingling across his features.

"I don't know, honey," Alice was answering La. To me, she said, "He's going to double back, we need to go."

"I'm driving," I shouted. "Edward, get her strapped in. Alice, keep a lookout for me up here."

Alice lifted La into her slender arms and gently placed her into the back seat beside Edward who automatically began fitting La's limbs through the correct straps and latching them in place. Alice swung into the passenger seat already looking ahead for whatever course of action would have the best outcome.

The ride that had been such an ecstatically wonderful time just over an hour ago felt like a punishment now. We were forced to crawl in some places lest we get stuck, but I hit the gas at every opportunity available until we were finally on the flat ground of the gravel road.

La's breathing was unevenly spaced punctuated by her heart stuttering at odd rhythms. As her pulse quickened she pulled her knees into her chest, wrapped her arms around her shins, and held her breath as if she was trying desperately to take control of her body. A blood-curdling scream erupted from her mere seconds later. Her nails dug into her jeans so hard I could hear them scrabbling against the fabric.

In the rearview, I could see Edward at a complete loss as to what to do. He flapped his hands uselessly, then tried to hug her awkwardly one way before attempting another angle. He tilted his head, listening to something only he was privy to, then decided to simply slide over the bench and wrap himself around her.

"Edward, talk to me!" I nearly pulled the car over to climb into the back seat myself, but Alice tapped my knee and shook her head. "What's going on?" I asked instead.

"She's having a panic attack," Edward's head was still cocked at an angle, listening intently to what was going on in La's mind. "There seems to be some ugly history between her and James."

So I had surmised, so had we all. "What kind of history?" I barked at him, though I didn't need to work very hard at a guess.

"That's what I'm trying to discern," he said, and moved one hand to the back of her neck, and one to her forehead, gently smoothing away the fear sweat that was leaking from her pores. He tensed and placed a palm against her cheek.

"Hey! You are not with him," he said sharply. "Do you hear me?"

Alice's voice cut through the screams in a high lilting melody. I recognized it as an old Scots-Gaelic lullaby she learned during a visit to the Highlands with the family.

"You can hear me," Edward was speaking into La's ear. "Listen to us, you're safe here. You're not where your memory says you are."

My heart was cracking, breaking into a thousand pieces. That scream, that awful scream. Where inside her could such a sound come from? I wanted to be the one with my arms around her, reassuring her. A small sob broke through my chest.

"La, please," I whispered. "Come back to me. I've got you, babe. We're getting you out of here, don't worry. I won't let anything happen to you."

"We are real," Edward said. "I promise. There you go."

The screaming stopped as La's entire body gave out. She slumped into the seat, arms and legs limp, only the harness keeping her upright.

"What's happening?" I asked frantically. Alice shifted in her seat and peered into the back.

"She passed out again," Edward said sadly. "But she's already coming to."

True to his words, after only a second she shifted and opened her eyes looking around like she had no idea where she was or how she got there. Noticing the harness, she started tearing at it frantically, ripping at it so violently she was at risk of tearing her nails off.

"East," Edward caught her hands and looked her dead in the eye. "We're heading for Calgary."

A pause, Edward lowered her wrists but maintained his hold on them. He must be answering her thoughts, because Alice was still in another place, watching out for James in her visions, quietly humming the lullaby.

"Esme and Jasper will make sure he's safe."

"What?" I turned to look at them in the back. La was beginning to look frantic again. "Who's safe?"

Edward didn't take his eyes off La. "She's worried about her uncle."

"No one is getting to Kevin, La. We won't leave him unprotected but we need to get you out of here first." I refocused on the dark, damp road ahead of me. We could get her out of the state at least, and then figure out how to get her across the border into Canada without a passport. Maybe Alice could circle back at some point and grab it, or Carlisle before he and Esme joined us.

"No," a small broken whisper came from the back seat but then went silent again.

"We've done it before, we can do it again," Edward answered yet another thought I couldn't hear. I wanted to be the one doing the screaming now.

"No," she said again, only this time it came out stronger than before. She started counting her breaths. In for four out for five.

As I watched in the rearview, La turned to Edward and stared deeply into his eyes, as if willing him to understand. I didn't like where this was going at all, but I let them communicate until one of them was ready to spill.

"We need to go back to the house," she stated. She sounded so broken, her voice weak and cracking. My eyes burned and burned with tears I couldn't shed.

"I think we should listen to her, Emmett." Edward grimaced at me in the mirror in apology, but it didn't deter him from adding, "Her plan will work… if we can get the timing right."

"No," I pressed the gas pedal to the floor for emphasis.

Alice cleared her throat, ready to add her two cents. "He's no match for the talent between Edward and me - not to mention you, Emmett. If we turn back now we'll beat him to the house."

"He'll just wait," I shot back at them. How could they be entertaining this insanity?

"Who has better patience than you?" Edward asked. "Plus, I saw inside his head. He was decided before Laurent even spoke. His talent is hunting, he's a tracker the likes of which I've never seen. He's going to be unshakable. We're going to have to kill him Emmett, and for once I'm looking forward to it, but he won't even attempt it until he thinks he can win, so we need to be smarter than him."

"There's another option…" Alice hedged.

"That would definitely negate the problem."

They wanted to turn her, and the worst part was that they were right. "I can't do that, not like this. It isn't an option, Alice. Not right now. Don't even think of it."

Because this was not the way to put that offer on the table. I knew exactly what La's answer would be, what other choice could she make under these circumstances? A choice made under duress wasn't a choice at all.

Besides, we needed Carlisle for that route to become possible. None of the three of us were capable of biting a human but not feeding. Anyway, afterward we would be vulnerable protecting a body we couldn't move. Sitting ducks for the tracker's taking.

"Do you want to hear my plan?" La spoke into the silence.