1,321A/N: Happy Halloween. ;)
I know. It's been a long time. Let's see if we can finish this one this Halloween weekend. No promises! 3
Most characters belong to S. Meyer. The rest belong to me. All mistakes are mine.
Chapter 23 – Faith and Vengeance
In a yet unnamed coastal mountain range in the Pacific Northwest – May 1784
Edward
The first time that Bella, Nessie, and I crossed the geographical divide leading from California into Oregon together, the coastal range had no name. The year was 1784, and the untamed wilderness only knew what had been native to it for thousands of years. Every impenetrable mountain, broad valley, rocky boulder, tree limb, roaring river, and all the native flora and fauna were intimately acquainted. Names were, therefore, superfluous.
At the foot of the mountains, a temperate climate and generous rainfall engendered the musky scent of parched earth over initially modest slopes lush with rustling evergreens. The ridges were fertile with deep, black soil, and the river terraces were rich in mineral sediment. Gurgling streams teemed with salmon and salamanders. The sharp odor of crisp pine needles and dark sap wafted along with a gritty tang of dust mixing into clay and with the natural odor of rot – rotting wood, rotting fruit, rotting animal carcasses, all melding with the fragrance of blooming wildflowers. Undisturbed for millennia, amphibians, reptiles, and avian species ruled from below and above, while mammals mastered the middle ground. A neither shy nor apologetic chorus of chirping, buzzing, scuttling, and vocalization created harmony in the wilderness.
As elevation progressed, evolving species scurried on their bellies or scoured on four stunted legs. The steeper inclines' dipping temperatures fed whistling gusts and a gradual transition from tree line to starker grasslands. Higher still, arid shrublands gave way to twisted vegetation and hardier beasts – elk, bears, coyotes, mountain lions – who were somehow quieter, more graceful in their hunt. Finally, at the summit, snow-covered bluffs overlooked a breathtaking barrier canyon and numerous valleys dotted by crystal lakes, emerald fields, and long-fingered streams.
"Papa, Mama, it is a glorious land."
"It is indeed, Nessie," I agreed.
Nessie stood at the fringe of an icy crag atop the highest mountain we had found in this unnamed range. Her hands rested on her hips, and one long limb was raised over a protruding rock. As she surveyed the horizon, her eyes - their shape and shade like mine - sparkled with wonder. She did not need a telescope, none of us did, not even as the harsh wind blew minuscule pellets of ice like shards into our eyes. The wind sieved through her long, ebony hair, wrapping her mane around her head and creating a crown out of her tresses. Up here, the alpine's gale shrilled relentlessly, with a ferocity that displaced both snowdrift and rock piles yet did not budge Nessie's frame. When she spoke, her strong voice projected over the cliffside clatter.
"We are far west and have not seen settlers for days. In both the valleys and mountains, the hunt is rich. Look there." She pointed at a herd of buffalo blanketing a valley like a dark ocean and making the mountain rumble from their migration. "The bison must number in the tens of thousands. And look there," she said, pointing in the opposite direction. "There are numerous caves which may suit our needs."
Bella stepped forward and stood beside our daughter. "What think you of the native tribes?"
"Although they remain wary, the tribes appreciated our honesty. They have heard stories of our kind, and understandably, they will at first watch us closely. However, I am confident that shall pass once they see we mean them no harm, that we mean to keep our pact to respect the land, to hunt only as needed, and to hunt to the east when our appetites are particularly hearty. Most importantly…" she paused, "they shall be put at ease once they see we can keep the evil subdued."
Nessie looked over her shoulder to where I stood just a step behind her and her mother. Her gaze wandered from Bella's and my still joined hands, despite my mate's step forward, then to her mother's gaze. She finally met my eyes, offering me a soft smile before turning back to the majesty before her. With her jaw, she gestured ahead.
"That valley there. I believe it would suit."
"I agree. It is an awe-inspiring prospect with many possibilities." Bella turned to look at me. "What say you, Edward?"
Like my mate and our daughter, I appreciated the magnificent sight of nature's mighty bounty. Nevertheless, I was more struck by my observation of them and how they absorbed this new sight.
Born in 1692, in the violent aftermath of an ignorant village's attempt to burn her mother for a witch, that day on the mountaintop, Nessie was ninety-two human years – almost one century old. Bella was less than two decades older, at a human age of one hundred and ten. Yet, witnessing the awe with which they could still view new aspects of an old world left me momentarily speechless. Nessie possessed a never-ending curiosity and hunger for knowledge, while her mother was unrelentingly passionate and compassionate, even in the face of fractious elements of what should have been a blissful existence. And they made the world infinitesimally more impressive to behold.
It was a world that had drastically changed in the almost century since Bella gave birth to our child, then narrowly escaped death by joining my existence. Ways of life, dress, thought, and speech patterns had all progressed, and we went along with them. We dressed differently than we had a century earlier when Bella was a young Puritan woman, and I was an unmated vampire, born half-Wampanoag native and half-English. We spoke differently. Our ways of seeing the world around us changed. Yet ten thousand years could transpire, and I would not tire of absorbing the world through my mate and daughter's eyes. And I was willing to do anything, fight against anyone, to keep them happy and safe.
By then, our group had traveled, explored, and lived off many lands, always maintaining a necessary distance from crowds and towns that increasingly multiplied across colonial America. Yet we were aware that, in this developing world, to ward off suspicion, we must needs interact with and emulate humans while maintaining some separation, a physical barrier between ourselves and mortals. After all, though we mimicked them, we were not them, and our needs were wholly unlike theirs. Moreover, our needs were horrifying to them. And so only the worst of the humans of the land ever saw us for what we indeed were, and only for the briefest moment before we drained them.
Naturally, we moved regularly, but we remained on the continent's east coast, in and around the colonies of Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and the others, which still met all our needs. Then came war between the colonies and their colonizers across the ocean – my father's people. Patriot fought Tory, brother fought brother, and Generals Washington and Cornwallis's men crisscrossed the colonies exchanging musket and canon fire, leaving behind billowing smoke, scorched earth, and fields of dead and dying – in the latter case, nourishment for us. Though, we earned our sustenance through assistance to the cause of freedom.
However, though the end of the war promised increased prosperity and an acceleration in growth for what were now former colonies joined as one nation, it did not bode as well for us. These United States were becoming too populous. And so, in 1784, we found ourselves pushing westward into pristine wilderness.
The Northwest's majesty was new to my mate and daughter but not me. I had traversed these lands in the first decades of my life before Nessie or even Bella was born. At the time, I searched for answers to the meaning of my existence, as it felt to me that this immortal coil I had been born to was a curse looped around my neck by the very nature of my birth. Unlike the umbilical cord that once fleetingly tied me to the Wampanoag woman named Sokanon, whom I killed by shredding through her womb, my nature would forever bind me to my sire. Begotten by a monster, I had been born a monster and would pay the price through an existence stretching out with neither end nor elucidation in sight.
So, I took myself away from my Aunt Aquinnah, the only woman whom, at that point in my existence, I loved and showed me love in return. I also took myself away from those few who knew, if not trusted, my true nature. And I traveled from one corner of the continent to the other and beyond, to places few knew and even less tread. I crossed these mountains where I now stood and trekked paths with creatures unknown to mankind.
I found others like me: blood drinkers, but ones who had been made, not born. I could have followed these leads to the monster who'd created them. Perhaps then, I would have come upon the first of his kind: my father, the English Captain Carlisle Cullen. Yet, for all I wished to know back then, I did not want to know him. Had foresight or instinct guided me rather than ignorant hatred, had I known that one day, he whom I disdained would be crucial to breaking the curse on my mate, I would have begun the current search for Carlisle back then. Still absent of the fulfilling responsibilities of being a father and mate, I would have spent every second of my existence hunting him down.
Instead, discovering that the immortals I found were almost as strong as me, I bedded the women and roughhoused with the men. For the first time in my existence, I felt no fear; at least, no fear of breaking them or of it all ending in a delectable yet vicious pool of blood and bones.
This was as near as I came to anything resembling contentment or self-acceptance for a time. I believed I had found all that I ever would: relationships built on what I saw as my defining characteristic, vampirism, as opposed to ones based on the needs of humankind: friendship, trust, companionship…love. I did not believe I deserved any of these. Until, on a nondescript morning, decades after I had returned to the Wampanoag in Massachusetts, I spotted a young Puritan woman.
After that, my existence was never the same.
So, on that mountain, I squeezed Bella's hand as we both gazed upon the magnificence before us – but not the majestic range; instead, our daughter. She was an amalgamation of my mate and me: intelligence without arrogance, strength without menace, judiciousness without righteousness, generosity without grandiosity, confidence without vanity, compassion, and empathy without sanctimony. She was brilliance, magnanimity, altruism, and, yes, beauty. In short, Nessie was inhumanly human in all the ways that mattered.
With Bella's hand in mine, I closed the space between my daughter, my mate, and myself and wrapped them in my embrace. Ruffling my daughter's hair, I gently kissed her forehead, then her mother.
"Even if I wanted to argue, I know better than to do so once you agree. Regardless, as long as I have you both, I'm happy to dwell anywhere in this world or beyond."
That morning, we three took our time descending the mountain. Ness wandered off to explore further while Bella and I found a quiet spot where we came together. It was…almost an idyllic existence.
Afterward, Bella and I advanced slowly toward my Aunt Aquinnah, whom we now called Alice, and toward Jasper, her husband. They had both remained at the foot of the mountain, guarding the horses and wagons and, more importantly, overseeing the thing that blighted our lives.
"Ness has already taken it!" Alice called out to us. "She has found a suitable cave!"
I nodded, and Bella looked up at me with a wistful smile.
"We should have known Ness would not waste time now that we have decided where to settle."
It was true, and knowing Hobomock was not nearby, Bella and I approached with more straightforward steps. Through trial and error, we had learned to keep a distance between my mate and the Hobomock. Even as inert as the concoctions we fed her kept the witch, if there was an insufficient barrier between them, Hobomock still managed to play tricks on Bella's mind, to plant preposterous thoughts, beliefs, and fears in my mate's otherwise brilliant mind.
Once, early in the process, we attempted to bury the witch miles from us, hoping she could remain buried until we found a solution to the yearly possession. Instead, we discovered that the excess distance left Bella flustered and forgetful as if part of her mind was also buried.
Now, I heard them. Ness and the witch were about a half mile away, with Ness conveying her over the earth employing the cart she had constructed to transport the witch short distances. It was a different manner of transportation from when I moved the witch from place to place – by her hair, while her vampiric frame, made of hardy, unyielding skin she did not deserve, skipped and hopped over rocks and bracken, crushing the smaller pieces like stone grating stone, all the while groaning and pleading.
'Keep the evil subdued' indeed.
But, in her manner, Nessie deftly handled her. Like me, Nessie achieved full-grown maturity at thrice a human's rate. By age seven, my daughter was fully grown. At that point, she set herself in charge of the Hobomock. Though we had tried to keep the witch separate from our daily lives, especially our daughter's daily life, even very early on, Nessie was too aware and intelligent to have the curse concealed from her. She not only noted how the curse affected her mother yearly, but she saw how I barely stomached setting eyes on Rosalie without fighting an almost overpowering urge to rip her to shreds – and thereby doom my mate, Nessie's mother, to an existence where Rosalie permanently took over her mind.
Alice and Jasper were little better, and besides, they were often away, occupied by their research and attempts to track down Carlisle. And Bella could not go near the witch. Therefore, it became Nessie who set herself in charge of dealing with the Hobomock in a manner none of us could: in a clinical, detached, and impassive manner. To the Hobomock, our daughter was neither rough nor gentle, neither harsh nor warm.
When we reached Alice and Jasper, I brushed my lips across Bella's brow.
"I shall assist our daughter and meet you afterward."
Bella nodded. "Alice, Jasper, and I shall hunt and then begin the preparations for building a home. You and Nessie may find us when you are done." She offered me a confident smile, for yes, she knew I would always find her—anywhere.
I located Nessie about a mile away and then another quarter mile deep inside a cave suitably concealed from the outside world with overgrown vines and shrubbery covering its narrow entry. It was dark and stale, ripe with the stench of decay, of animal and insect carcasses, and with no signs that any two-legged being had wandered within for centuries.
My daughter had Hobomock splayed out on the damp ground, feeding her the concoction we had developed over the years - a mix of poisonous plants, toxic substances, and vile rodents, all of which kept the witch alive but only on the fringe of consciousness.
Nessie looked up. "Papa, I knew you would follow, though you could have hunted with Mama, Aunt, and Uncle. I am well capable."
"I am aware that you are more than capable, Ness. I merely wanted to offer my assistance."
She shot me a smile warmed by indulgent humor. "Very well. I was envisioning a narrow tunnel dug deep over there." She gestured to where, in darkness only broken by our vampiric sight, the cave appeared to split in two directions.
"Does it matter which side?"
She nodded. "It does indeed. The wall on the right supports the cave's weight. Should you burrow into that one, the entire structure would collapse, an event not as calamitous for us as for humans. But still."
"Ahh," I nodded, taking a closer inspection of the cave's interior and surmising she was correct. "I would have come to that conclusion soon – as soon as half the cave was upon my shoulders."
She chuckled magnanimously now. "I'm sure you would have noted it before that, Papa. Who taught me how to sound for such things?" As I passed her, I ruffled her soft hair as if she were still a young child, which she had only been for less than two years. Yet, they were two years I would cherish for an-
"Edward…"
I paused for the merest, almost imperceptible moment, my scalp prickling before I continued on my purpose.
"Husband…"
Despite the years that had passed, the hundreds…thousands of times that the witch had called out to me in such manners, the crimson wave full of hot, vengeful thoughts never diminished. The urge to tear her limb from limb never became easier to manage.
In contrast, Nessie ignored her. Finished with the feeding, she stood, wiping her hands on her skirt.
"Go wash up, Nessie. I shall finish up here."
She looked at me warily but did not voice the concern clearly expressed in her eyes.
"Very well, Papa."
I met her at the stream. Side by side, we washed the witch and her new home off of our hands. We listened to the brook's calming gurgle and watched fish swim a meandering path while beaver scuttled across the stream's banks and tried to catch them.
"Is she secured in the burrow, Papa?"
While Ness would've probably hefted Rosalie over a shoulder to situate her in the burrow with measured preciseness, if not actual care, I had grabbed the witch by her mangy yellow hair and hurled her in, cursing her as she thrashed, groaned, grunted, and continuously cried out 'Edward,' or 'Husband,' bemoaning aloud why I treated her thus. It always had furiously rankled me how, in the insane confusion she wrought on herself through her evil perfidy, she thought herself, my rightful wife.
"Yes," I answered Nessie.
"Did you set out her nourishment?"
If she meant, had I tossed in the dead, poisoned rodents, snarling as Rosalie whimpered and begged for proper sustenance and spat, "Rats are more than you deserve, Witch," then,
"Yes."
"I remember my birth, Papa," Nessie said after a long silence, "when Aunt Alice wrenched me from Mama's womb, then Mama's tremulous smile despite her agony." She looked at me. "I recall your smile and the warmth of your arms when you first held me."
I swallowed hard. "I have always wondered how much of that night you recall, although, as I recall my birth, I feared you did as well."
She angled her head. "Why did you fear it?"
"If you recall your birth, you must also recall my rampage…the villagers I murdered in my fury for what they had allowed to be done to your mother. My own birth has haunted me in the past, my manner of arrival into this world as my father…your grandfather murdered a village in the background. Ness, I am heartily ashamed-"
She cut me off by setting her hand on my forearm. To any human, our touch was like a sharp brush with ice. To one another, we were warm and comforting.
"I do recall all of it as you say, but I view it quite differently. I have never thought it an act for which you should feel shame."
"Ness, you are a vampire born, as am I. Yet, you are your mother's child, and you have inherited everything that once made her human and gentle-"
"Have I?" she chuckled again. This time, though not cynical, her humor held a touch more defiance, more strength of will than her earlier indulgent chuckles. "Papa, I was born to a human mother, as were you. And as do you, I see myself in both my mother and father."
I frowned deeply. "You are more your mother-"
"If I am a gentle sort of being, it must be due to those who were gentle with me and with one another. If I am intelligent, just, inquisitive, and compassionate, all those characteristics you have often laid at my feet, it is for the same reasons. But you must never fear that I judge you, Papa, for though I treat Rosalie, the witch…the Hobomock, with a form of fairness, it is not due to a failure to see her for what she is and what evil she wrought to Mama…and to you, for I recall your fear and despondency as well, Papa, on that fateful night. You both bear the scars."
"Nessie…" I murmured.
By then, nightfall began its descent, and the approaching dusk lent the valley the blue hue of royalty, evergreens rising tall and black and contrasting with the ivory snow-topped mountains, and all of it reflected in the crystalline lake by which we sat. Behind the tallest summit, where Nessie, Bella, and I had stood a short while earlier, the last of the sun fell in a glorious and far-reaching glow. Creatures of the night joined the land's chorus, and a blanket of stars made the vast sky appear never-ending.
Nessie took my hand, squeezing it tightly between both of her own. "To me, Mama is beautiful inside and out."
"Yes, she is. She is very beautiful, and you have inherited that from her as well," I said with a smile.
She grinned mischievously. "Ahh, but again, I must say I have my looks from both mother and father. I have eyes, Papa, and I see how Mama and you have always attracted eager notice from both humans and those like us."
I snorted, and she sobered and continued after stifling another chuckle.
"Like the humans who cannot see her scars, I do not see her scars. But they are there, as are yours, Papa, though yours take a different form. And though you may not see my wrath, my desire for vengeance, much like yours and Mama's scars, they are there. I am a vengeful creature, Papa, and I make no apology for it. And I will release my wrath when the time comes. We will find a way to separate her from Mama's mind, either through Jasper and Alice's search for your father, with the assistance of Goody Platt's gifts, or through some other means. One day, the Hobomock will pay for her sins." She offered me a resolute nod. "Something else you once said is that evil that is wrought in this existence-"
"-is paid for in this existence," I finished for her.
She nodded, then said, "There is…perhaps one thing, Papa, that I might have more of than you. And perhaps that is due to all the darkness you once saw in your life." She added this in a tender tone of absolution as if wanting to make it clear she did not blame me for lacking what she was about to inform me I lacked.
"Faith. Faith that we, as a family built by love, not built on vampirism, will find a solution."
"Faith," I echoed after a while.
"Faith," she repeated with a soft smile. "Now, let us go hunt in these marvelous lands."
OOOOO
Siskiyou Mountain Pass - October 30, 2092
For decades, we lived in relative peace in the mountainous range later named the Cascades. In 1827, the first trappers arrived in the region. These were employed by the Hudson Bay Company, a British-controlled trade conglomerate who, in a land that never knew or needed law before, assigned themselves the role of the region's de facto government. HBC trappers traveled south from Vancouver, Canada, to extract fur, lumber, salmon, and beef from the land. In a region exceedingly rich in such natural resources, such practices created fortunes – and wrought war with the regional tribes. Unfortunately, as had occurred further east over the earlier few centuries, these wars ended horrifically for both the natives and the beasts of the region. Tribes were progressively pushed off their own lands…and by necessity, we were pushed further toward the western coast. Then came the discovery of gold. And in under another century, pioneers, trappers, and an indelible belief in Manifest Destiny accomplished what neither intertribal skirmishes nor our vampiric appetites had ever even approximated: the decimation and near extinction of two and four-legged creatures who had freely roamed the northwestern lands, lakes, and rivers for millennia.
But, in the years before these tragedies occurred, early HBC trappers built a pass through one of the mountains – what was Nessie's favored mountain due to the incomparable views of its highest summit over what is now the Oregon border with California. This pass was created to bypass this awe-inspiring…yet treacherous summit on one's trek further west. Unfortunately for these early travelers, the mountainous trail was hardly less perilous than its summit, especially when crossed in the winter months between September and April. Blizzards blew in without warning, and the snow reached chest levels and beyond in minutes. The steep inclines created hazardous ice conditions, which many in this group of trappers discovered firsthand. This group's leader, who survived to tell the tale, named the mountain and its pass Siskiyou, a Chinook word for his bob-tailed horse, who died on that pass. Still, American pioneers have ever been tenacious. During the nineteenth century, my family and I discovered many a westward-bound wagon train and their riders, who'd been caught in the region too late in the season and were uncovered after the snowmelt, dead but sufficiently preserved to become vampire sustenance.
It was on this pass – the geographical divide between California and Oregon, and first a trappers' trail, then a pioneers' pass, then a stage road, a railroad line, and now, a highway route – that I found myself. It should've been a shortcut for me – a trail I'd traversed thousands of times over the past three centuries, where my family and I hunted hundreds of times, where my mate and I made love under lush canopies, and my daughter and I talked by the lake and watched the stars.
But, that afternoon, nothing was as it should be. I should've been returned to my mate hours ago with a truckful of a bounty made up of a dozen of the worst scum in this country – but fresh-blooded criminals were fresh-blooded criminals. Long gone were the days of the Wild West, when we could hunt down criminal elements much more simply and remain close to our homes as we did so.
Instead, I struggled in a way I had never struggled in my existence.
I struggled to return to Bella, but my vision – a vision that had always been sharper than that of any being on the planet – swam before me. Quick bursts of clarity were interspersed with a blur of colors and shapes too indistinguishable for me to attempt driving. My legs – always faster than any vehicle invented to date – felt like dead weights; each footfall was like a tread through a quicksand river. Excruciating pain roared within me: I felt deprived of air I did not need. I felt a heart that had only ever beat for my mate, now mangled by an invisible hand.
The mating bond.
It was the mating bond; I knew it just as I knew what all this pain and weakness meant.
"Bella," I panted because, despite my terror, I couldn't even shout, too weak to howl the name to the vast, darkened skies as I wanted to.
Even today, the Siskiyou Pass was still considered a treacherous crossing. Around this time of year, heavy snow fell regularly, and a curtain of thick, gray fog sat like a permanent fixture across the mountain, making visibility almost nil. Moreover, the pass's steep slope made the descent along the highway so dangerous that escape ramps were provided for truckers along specific mileposts. Yet still, truck drivers risked the crossing to save some time – the modern pioneer spirit.
But again, none of this had ever been a problem for me.
"Bella," I breathed, stumbling along the highway divider while thick flakes hindered my already compromised vision, and I fumbled through the mounds of snow. Was this what it was like to be human?
Again, typically, I would've remained out of sight – cut through forest and lakes in the amount of time it took a trucker to reach the mountain's first twisting road. But the only thing more precious than time right now was Bella. And I wouldn't get to her in time to…to fix whatever had gone horrifically, horrendously, monstrously wrong on my own two feet. Not this time.
Yet time was something else that currently eluded me. How long had I been attempting to reach her? How much time had I wasted already?
When I finally heard a truck's engine rumbling behind me on the road, its motor straining and struggling with the steep incline, I spun around. I extended my hand, furiously waving and simultaneously approaching it, coming perilously close to its moving body.
"Help," I said, yet the word erupted barely above a hoarse whisper. I waved both hands. "Help me! Please help me!"
The trucker honked angrily, indignant at finding an individual where no one dared walk. He then sped by.
"…off the road, you fucking maniac!" he expelled in his wake, the long limbs of timber carried by his truck and chained to a steel bed shaking and rattling, the bed's wheels slipping and sliding on black ice.
Again, I tried my holo, but despite the technological advances of the late twenty-first century, dead zones still existed. What was perhaps a quarter of an hour later, another truck approached. Again, I waved both hands and moved close to the truck as it neared. This one also continued, honking me out of the way yet refraining from cursing.
Once more, I tried my holo, punching the key for a connection to Bella, but nothing went through.
"Baby, please," I choked. "Please be okay." I tried to shout, to release my pain and terror, but what resulted was nothing louder than a moan. All the while, my heart and lungs contracted agonizingly.
Another truck approached, and I stumbled onto the highway, waving my hands high. "Please stop!" Then, I fell to my knees, sapped of all strength.
'Let it run me over if it must,' I thought, then squeezed my eyes shut. I was growing weaker, and I knew what that meant. In this state, I decided to let the truck hit me.
After all, it might or might not injure me. It might tear off limbs and cause unimaginable physical suffering. But all of that would be nothing to my current mental anguish, that of knowing that my mate needed me. Yet, I was helpless to reach her. Perhaps if I were run over, the ensuing trip to the hospital would get me closer to Bella – one way or the other. The fact that I would be outed as some form of inhuman creature was the least of my concerns.
"Hey. Hey, buddy."
I heard the voice as if spoken across an ocean, shouted from those valleys my daughter used to love gazing at from the top of this mountain, whispered from the bottom of a grand canyon.
"Buddy, what's wrong with you? Almost got yourself run over."
I looked up through heavy lids, eyes opening and shutting. A blur of a man's face appeared…balding… a white-gray beard.
"Help…I need…I need help getting to my mate…my…Bella."
"What are you on, buddy?"
"Help…get to…"
"Yeah, you need help, for sure. You're as cold as a block of ice. And your clothes are ripped to shreds! What happened to you?"
"I…Bella…"
"But look at this holo you've got here." Vaguely, I felt my holo yanked out of my grip. "No service up here, though, huh? I've got a holo-gramer in the truck."
"I need to use it…call Bella…then a ride…"
"Yeah, yeah, sure. I'll give you a ride, but those look like some quality rags before they were shredded up. Let's see what's in your pockets, huh?"
"Please. You can take whatever you want. I'll…I'll pay…just…"
"Yeah. I can probably get some good money for this holo. And what's in this digital wallet?" He whistled low through his teeth. "A black card? Says Edward Cullen. Well, Edward Cullen, this is one of those no-limit cards, ain't it?"
"Please…"
"Edward Cullen, this here's too good an opportunity to pass by. So you know what we're gonna do? You're gonna give me the code to this black card, and then I'm gonna leave you right here while I ring up a few purchases, and then I'll make an anonymous call letting someone know you're up here."
"Please, no time. Bella." I grabbed a fistful of his clothing, but he quickly shook himself off.
"Don't be a prick, Edward Cullen. It's just money," he chuckled.
I bared my teeth and growled. "Get me to Bella!"
Despite my newfound weakness, there must've still been something left of the vampire in me.
"Holy shit!" The truck driver backed up so quickly that he fell backward, dropping my holo and wallet in the process. Eyes round with horror, he remained there, frozen in the snow for a few moments, staring at me in abject terror. No longer breathing. No longer speaking. No longer blinking. But then…he blinked, swallowing hard. His chest rose and fell on a heavy breath. With extreme languidness, his eyes never leaving me, he rose to his feet.
"What are you?" he breathed.
"Please, I mean you no harm," I panted. "I just need to get to my mate."
He stood there, immobile, for another handful of heartbeats. Then he sprinted back to his truck, lifting his legs high to rush through the snowmounds with a relative speed that made me unbelievably envious. And just as I thought he meant to speed away, and I vaguely wondered if he'd return with the local Jackson County police or possibly even a SWAT team, the truck driver emerged from his truck again. Now, he carried a shotgun.
He strode back to me with determination, retracing his steps through the snow and the path he'd cleared.
"You fucking monster. I'm gonna blow your head off, and then I'm gonna make me some money selling that fang-filled head to science."
What a rugged land the Northwest has always been. Even at that moment, as through blurred vision, I vaguely made out features twisted in a hate-filled scowl, there was beauty as well. As he lifted the shotgun and aimed it at my forehead, sparkling flakes of snow glistened around him and his gun. A winter eagle soared and sang in the distance.
'You are my Soaring Eagle, and I shall always love you.'
"Bella," I grinned. I saw her smiling at me and felt her cradling my face in her warm hands.
The trucker grunted. He then dropped the shotgun, which landed with a snow-muffled thump between us. His own limp body followed similarly, except it fell sideways, leaving a crimson stain that spread and soaked into the previously pristine snow.
"Edward…" Bella called.
"Bella," I smiled.
"Edward…Edward, it's me. Ahh, Jesus. The mating bond; she's weak, so you're weak."
A hand smacked my face. I blinked hard, trying with all my might to clear my vision.
"Edward, can you hear me? Can you see me?"
Jacob.
Jacob, my daughter's husband, and my friend knelt before me. With the back of his hand, he wiped the trucker's blood off his mouth and splattered the droplets that clung to his knuckles onto the ivory snow.
"Jacob, how…where…?"
"Jesus, Edward." Setting his hands under my arms, Jacob helped me to my feet.
"We've been calling you."
"No service."
"Yeah, I see that now, though Alice and Jasper aren't answering their Holos either."
"They're far. Alice and Jasper were going far. I was…I was supposed to stay close, but Bella looked well, and I…I wanted to keep her fed and strong," I choked, then pleaded, "Bella."
"She is alive. Nessie is with her."
The flood of relief coursing through me made my already weak limbs grow weaker. But, like us, Jacob was a vampire. And unlike myself, he was a thousand times stronger than an average man. He easily held me up.
"But she's not well, Edward. She's…asleep, and no matter what we do, we can't wake her. And the witch…the Hobomock is dead. It looks like…somehow, Bella got to her and killed her."
"Then she is…my mate is gone. The Hobomock has stolen her mind." Squeezing my eyes shut, I let my head fall back and tried with all my might to howl.
Jacob shook me and forced my eyes back to his. "Listen to me! For years now, Nessie has been conducting her own research, and she's convinced that's not the case!"
I heard his words, and I wanted to believe them. But nothing had changed after centuries of carrying this curse with us, from place to place, from colonies to wilderness, and from towns to cities. If anything, the curse had worsened, stealing more from Bella for extended periods. And despite Alice's foresight, Jasper's ability to get others to confide in him, and our brilliant daughter's research, we'd been unable to locate either Carlisle or a solution.
Yet…our daughter once said to me, 'There is…perhaps one thing, Papa, that I might have more of than you…Faith that we, as a family built by love…will find a solution.'
'We will find a way to separate her from Mama's mind…'
"Take me to them," I said. "Take me to them as fast as you can."
Jacob nodded. "Can you stand alone?"
"I think so."
He left me standing, and with his superhuman strength and speed, he picked up the trucker's body and deposited it over the mountain. He then kicked the bloody snow and buried it under a snowdrift so high it would be months before it melted. Finally, he put the truck into gear and allowed it to follow its driver off the cliffside. All this was conducted in under a minute.
Wiping off his hands, he returned to me, lifting a brow in warning. "You know I'm going to have to carry you."
"I don't care. Just get me back to my mate and daughter."
With another nod from Jacob, we were off.
A/N: Thoughts?
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