On the third day with no sign of Bella Swan, the family started to consider the real possibility of leaving Forks.
Selfish, maybe, but not only were the town members beginning to become suspicious at the Cullen children's sudden absence from school, the shifters were also beginning to get antsier, daring to snap at the Cullens every time they met, despite having similar goals. Jasper, however, was convinced they were keeping Bella Swan close to the reservation, some place where the wolves rarely went, but the Cullens wouldn't have luck getting to it without passing into wolf territory.
Jasper made the argument that, as the nomads were after Alice, they would follow the Cullens to their next location, leaving the town and the shifters alone. Carlisle, however, worried that if they left, the humans would be in more danger with only three wolves to protect them. The discussion began as a fleeting remark from Rosalie as they changed patrol shifts, and then snowballed until it was pretty much all they would talk about in the fleeting moments they were gathered together. In the end, a clear divide was made: Edward, Jasper, and Rosalie in favor of leaving, Esme, Emmett, and Carlisle in favor of staying, while Lettie and Alice wanted to gather more information before making a decision.
A small smile pulled at Edward's face at the memory of Lettie's shocked face as the family waited to hear her opinion on the matter.
That night, he and Alice were the only ones in the house, Alice scribbling furiously in her sketchbook as she lounged on he and Lettie's leather couch, barely paying any mind as Edward flipped through one of Esme's old art history books on the floor beside her. Despite the underlying tension, it was finally a relatively peaceful moment among the chaos, and he intended to take advantage of it.
Despite only seeing a somewhat discombobulated image in Lettie's head, Edward was almost positive he would know Charles Gorham's dagger the moment he laid eyes on it. Now, however, after flipping through nearly every book Esme had on ornamental weaponry, it seemed a fruitless task; either the dagger no longer existed (destroyed or stolen sometime in the last hundred years), or was the wrong color, or was too long to be a dagger, or was missing the key gem, or some other attribute that eliminated it as a possible candidate. Lettie's knowledge that Charles Gorham had been traveling to and from various museums since the early 1900s was useful, but that only got him so far. Plus, there was no guarantee a spirit would still be attached to it even if he found the right one just on these pictures. No, he'd have to find it and confirm it himself before getting Lettie's hopes up, all while keeping an eye out for murderous nomads and a psychotic poltergeist.
Great.
Despite all of that, though, the gilded swimming in his mind was a welcome change from the single phrase Lettie had uttered days ago that refused to leave him.
To marry my betrothed…To marry my betrothed…To marry my betrothed…
It was like a knife being jabbed into his ear any time he allowed his mind to wander. Though he didn't have any doubt that Lettie could have had her pick of suitors, the constant degrading comments she made towards herself about how she didn't fit in made him almost believe she was completely unattached to her human life beyond her Father. How could he not have realized, or even thought, that she might have been engaged? She died at a time when people her age were already having children, especially in the higher society she grew up in, so why was that one line bothering him so much?
To marry my betrothed…To marry my betrothed…To marry my betrothed…
It wasn't that he didn't want to know, but every time he and Lettie were able to spend time together, they were with someone else, their minds focused on finding the missing human. As it should've been at that moment, he reluctantly thought, but the wellbeing of a human who caused him nothing but trouble was very low on his priority list, even as she threatened their very way of life.
To marry my betrothed…To marry my betrothed…To marry my betrothed…
Was she close to the human she was going to marry? Or was it arranged? If she wasn't happy, then her Father, who missed her so terribly she turned into a ghost, would surely not force her to get married? But, knowing Lettie, she might have gone through with it to help someone else. Maybe he should ask her-
"Now's not a good time. She won't tell you anything," Alice said breezily, barely stopping her pencil as she let the vision take her over. Edward, trying to talk to Lettie, but she looked at him with mixed confusion - upset that he had listened in on her and Rosalie's private conversation and confused why he was wondering about that when Bella Swan was still missing. Edward winced at the vision, feeling the embarrassment for an event that he had almost caused.
"I wasn't going to…" he trailed off, then sighed, roughly dropping his head against the leather couch. "I hate when you're right."
"She'll tell you eventually." Edward perked up at that.
"Did you have a vision?" Alice scoffed, then rolled her eyes.
"I wish. It's so annoying that I can't see anything she decides on." She spared Edward a glance and gave him a small smile. "But I just know it. You guys are too close for her to keep something like that a secret."
"Well, she has so far-"
"And how much downtime have you had, really, since she's gotten here? It feels like every other week we're dealing with something annoying." To that, Edward chuckled.
"You're not wrong in that regard, I just-"
His phone, which he'd discarded on Lettie's desk as soon as he could, rang violently, nearly shaking the wood underneath it. Alice and Edward exchanged a quick glance, and then Edward was on his feet, hitting 'answer' before it could ring a second time.
"Get to 101, now," Jasper growled, voice strained in a way Edward had only heard in one situation before; he was near blood, and was on the verge of losing control.
"Jasper?" Alice asked, concerned. Edward sent her a quick nod.
"I'm already on my way to you."
"What's going on?"
"A bus," Jasper took a ragged breath, trying to gain a little bit of control, "they attacked a bus."
It wasn't hard to find the rest of his family, not with the overwhelming stench of blood permeating the air around them. Emmett and Rosalie looked worse for wear, scuffed up like they had been in a fight, Rosalie's arms were firmly wrapped around Emmett, but they were nothing compared to the carnage around them. A large yellow school bus was wedged between two trees, run off the road, the front completely crushed. The windows were smashed, broken wide open by the impact, but the door was clearly ripped from the hinges by something unnatural. The bus driver looked as if she was thrown from the vehicle, laying far from the bus, surrounded in a pool of her own blood, visible even as the red brake lights lit up the dark street. Even before looking inside, Edward knew what he was going to find - teenagers ripped limb from limb, exsanguinated in the worst ways imaginable, faces frozen permanently in horror.
Edward's eyes quickly found Lettie, hunched beside Esme as his mother sobbed, mourning the death of so many innocents.
"What happened?" Edward called as he approached. All four looked over to him, faces pinched in a way he knew meant they were holding their breath.
"Survivors," Rosalie said breathlessly, nodding her head towards the bus, cautious not to try too many words, hands tightening around Emmett's arms. Despite never drinking human blood before, she was extremely cautious, the curious temptation weighing down on her. Edward was lucky all those years helping Carlisle in the hospital gave him a stronger will than most other vampires.
When he got a nod from Lettie, assuring him she was okay, he darted towards the bus, pulling his shirt up and over his nose. Though they didn't need to breathe, he still needed to take every precaution, which included drowning out some of the shiny blood's scent with his own. Glistening temptation served up on a silver platter…And this massacre was practically an all-you-can-eat buffet.
Bodies were discarded on almost every seat, a mishmash of being seated upright and thrown across the tops of benches, discarded without a second glance. Bags were ripped open, some bearing claw marks from being used as a makeshift shield, and their contents, from knee pads to underwear, were strewn around. Edward averted his eyes from the school work with printed names.
While the front was bad, the back of the bus was the worst of it. Students were piled on top of each other, no doubt trying to get as far away as possible, tripping over duffle bags and other students in their haste, unaware of the speed their assailants possessed. Some were completely drained, skin pale and hollow, while others were still actively bleeding, pooling into a slow, magma-like creep across the textured floor.
It was so…still.
It made finding anomalies that much easier.
Survivors, Rosalie called them, but their twitching bodies were not signs of life. Edward carefully extracted each twitching body he could find, mind focused on the task at hand to keep his temptation at bay. When he slipped slightly, allowing a small whiff, the pungent scent of the nomad's venom would snap him back, vile and sinister and wrong.
It was a privilege to live a whole life, Edward reminded himself solemnly as he laid another transforming human- no, vampire- on the grass.
To be born, to grow, to run freely, to be burdened, to fall in love, to die. It was a privilege to have and lose and find and long and all things that make the soul feel like a tangible thing rather than a concept, some far-off idea that has been written and studied for years but had no real definition. The nomads took that very concept and crushed it in their greedy hands, taking only what they wanted and discarding the rest as if they weren't taking the lives of innocents.
Lettie crouched beside him, weeping over the body of a young girl, barely younger than them when they died, hand hovering over her red soaked hair. She was twitching intermittently, venom pulsing under her skin as it crept slowly to her heart from the bites across her legs. If he was less selfish, he would have bit her too, creating a battleground of venom in her fragile body that would eventually kill itself and its host.
It would have been better, he knew, than to wake up fundamentally different and not understand why your entire life was taken away. To slowly forget those integral parts of life that make it worth living. To slowly become numb to life, to just exist, to blend into the background of the everyday. To wish you could spend your entire existence buried beneath the earth, slowly withering away until you were nothing but a pile of ash, because then, at least, you would feel useful, to feel as if you contributed something instead of only taking.
Edward flinched as Lettie intertwined their fingers, gripping his hand tightly despite the way she was trembling.
"Esme will begin to bring them to the river, to wash off their blood," she said. "We must hurry, before any humans discover the accident."
It was a miracle the accident still hadn't been discovered.
Five bodies out of the thirty-three had lasted long enough to be found, sheer will or luck keeping them from fully dying. Edward and Esme carried the bodies to the best of their abilities, jumping into the nearby river to clean off as much blood as possible before carrying them home. Only Rosalie met them at the door, looking shaken but determined, as she helped them into the makeshift cots in Carlisle's office.
As they worked, Rosalie explained how she practically carried Emmett nearly the entire way back to the house, filling him with blood until he was so lethargic he could do nothing but lay across the couch, a scarf covered in her scent wrapped around his nose. Jasper and Alice went to hunt, trusting that the nomads were also in a state of overconsumption, too full to do something reckless for the next couple of days. Carlisle had also called as they were on their way to say that the crash had been discovered. Police were on the way, including him, to examine the bodies.
With a touch of Lettie's necklace, she was able to help slightly, trickling water and a light washcloth against the skin of the girl she had wept over earlier, carefully washing away any remaining blood. They burned all of their clothes, as much as Esme sympathized with losing a piece of their human life, but the stench of blood and venom was making the room near suffocating. Bella Swan's venom, in particular, felt like an icicle was piercing his nose, lodging so deep into his brain that he had to back away before he lost his mind.
While Esme took the time to burn anything covered in blood, Edward gave Rosalie and Lettie the room so they could redress the turning vampires. Jasper had returned, joining Emmett in the quiet living room, each looking out the window with a scowl.
"Alice?" Edward asked softly.
"Esme," Emmett grunted out, adjusting Rosalie's scarf so he could talk. Edward gave him a sympathetic pat as he sat beside him.
"They were still able to attack, even when we had the upper hand of hunting them down," Jasper said gruffly, annoyance leading his thoughts, eyes still focused on the treeline. Edward sighed.
"They've been able to outmaneuver both us and the shifters," he tried to console, though it only deepened his brother's frown. "They're clever."
"Or they have someone gifted in their coven." Edward raised a brow.
"That would explain some things."
"I doubt it's something like Alice's foresight, because we've been too close to catching them before. They also wouldn't have attacked the bus when they did, not when Emmett and Rosalie were nearby."
"You saw them, then?" Edward asked Emmett. His brother scoffed loudly, annoyed.
"Fought them." His voice was slower, softer, even though his words were harsh, rolling his shoulder as if he had sore muscles. "Only reason they were able to get away was that newborn Swan. We almost had them, and then it was like she broke out of her thirst and joined in. I've never seen a newborn like that before."
"Nor have I," Jasper added, just as displeased by the news. "The way Rosalie described her control…it was unlike anything I've ever seen. No newborn can resist human blood. None. And yet, Bella Swan was able to come assist her coven as if there was no blood nearby."
"Great," Edward grumbled, "so she has excellent control on top of whatever other power their coven has."
"I'd be curious to know if you are still unable to read her mind," Jasper mused, but shook his head. "It's the least of our concerns now. Something about their coven is dangerous. As you said, James is a tracker. It's only thanks to our numbers that he hasn't attacked, but I doubt he hasn't kept from using his abilities so far. I suspect one of the other two has the ability to know what our next move is, or, at the very least, has a keen ability to outmaneuver their opponent. Either way, it screws us over unless we find a way to keep their ability from being used."
"And that doesn't include Samuel's annoying habit of helping them," Edward complained. Jasper steepled his fingers, leaning forward.
"They are the wild card here. But, they weren't there today, even though this should have been too tempting to pass up." He sighed, rubbing a hand down his face. "Lettie said they feed on fear. There would have been no better opportunity to take their fill, and yet, they weren't there."
"So, where could they have gone?" Edward continued, speaking Jasper's thoughts aloud. Then, a fleeting thought had him look at his dark-haired brother in surprise. "You think they attacked the wolves?"
"It would make sense, right?" Emmett said, taking a deep breath and slouching into the chair. "If Samuel attacked the wolves, they'd be too preoccupied to attack the vamps."
"If that's true…" Jasper trailed off, a hint of unease entering his voice. If that was true, then Samuel was in for a lot more than simply their own gain. To pass up the feast that would have been torturing those teenagers meant either that Samuel was gaining something much more valuable than what human pain could give them, or the nomads had found a way to rein Samuel in. Both possibilities sent a shiver down Edward's spine.
"What do they even want, anyway?" Emmett whined. "They're doing all of this stupid stuff for nothing."
"Or something we don't know yet," Jasper tried to reason, though there was a flicker of a thought Edward did not like. Jasper glanced towards him, feeling his anger. "She has a connection with them. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's not true."
"Who?" Emmett asked.
"She would have said something," Edward rebutted, ignoring Emmett's question.
"Who?"
"We know about Samuel, thanks to her insight. It's not hard to imagine how she knows that when so much else about the spirit world is a puzzle to her."
"What am I, an owl? Who are we talking about?"
"Lettie," Jasper and Edward said in unison, voices tight.
"What? Lettie?" Emmett looked between the two, confused. "Just because Samuel tortured her for a while doesn't mean she's connected to him." Edward simply stared. Jasper leaned over, smacking him across the head. "What the hell?"
"She told you that?" As if just realizing what he said was supposed to be kept a secret, Emmett guiltily looked to the floor.
"It's not our place to say," Jasper said quickly. Edward stood, feet carrying him to the one place he had always wanted to be. Jasper grabbed his arm before he could confront Lettie upstairs. "She doesn't like talking about it."
"She's obviously fine talking to you two, though," he gritted out, ripping his arm from Jasper's grasp.
"Because it helped us with Samuel, not for any other reason." Not because she trusts us more, Jasper thought, sincerity at the forefront of his mind. Edward couldn't stop his scoff.
"And she hasn't told me that either."
"She doesn't want you hurt!" Emmett blurted, his rugged attempt at soothing Edward's worried thoughts. Jasper slapped an exasperated hand to his forehead.
"He's an idiot, but he's right," Jasper added, ignoring Emmett's shout of protest. "Lettie only told us what happened with Samuel because it helped us stand our ground, which, by the way, is to attack in unison from two different directions. It requires quite a bit of concentration to use their telekinesis, apparently, so they can only control one thing at a time. Of course, she didn't know about their bursts of energy that can send anyone close to them flying…" Jasper sighed. "Only so much help can come from someone who isn't always affected by other spirits."
You're being stupid, Edward thought, annoyed with himself, but even more so as his anger redirected towards his brothers. It wasn't their fault that Lettie opened up about her past, not when she continued to keep her memories closed off to him, and yet, he found he couldn't be annoyed with her. Lettie had suffered, just like the rest of his family suffered, and yet, she was still just as much a mystery to him as the first day they met. She'll tell you when she's ready.
And yet…they had spent every moment together for months, and it only took a handful of private moments together for Lettie to reveal her pain to his brothers, and from Emmett's uncontrolled memories, almost nonchalantly. She was able to describe the torture Samuel had put her through, from mental to physical violence, from threatening her to threatening the wayward humans that used her old home as an escape, without batting an eye, and yet, when Edward tried to get her to open up, she clammed up near reflexively, changing the subject before he could pry.
Was it to spare his feelings? She had a habit of trying to shield him, even though he was an immortal superbeing. All the time they spent together, and she couldn't figure out that watching her suffering through someone else's eyes was more painful than anything she could have said to him?
"She wants to tell you-," Jasper tried, but Edward cut him off with a scoff.
"Don't tell me like you know what she wants." He ignored the pitying look his brother gave him, anger flaring at his brother's ability to know his true emotions. He hurried away before Jasper could open his mouth and confirm what he tried so hard to push down.
Lettie was still in the makeshift infirmary, carefully carrying the bloodied rag to the bucket by the door, hand starting to become translucent from use. She barely was able to give him a smile before he pulled her into his arms, hand on the back of her head to keep her as close to him as possible.
"Teddy?" she worried quietly, one hand reaching out to grab the back of his shirt in a return hug. "Are you alright?"
"I can't lose you," he said quietly. Lettie sighed, strengthening her grip.
"Oh, you fool." She laughed breathlessly, unaware of his newfound knowledge.
A fool?, he thought, squeezing her tighter. Yeah, that sounds about right.