unhappy ending

I had never been quite as grateful for railroad tracks as I was at the moment. Thanks to them, there was enough distance between Victoria and myself that I could escape with ease. Though the fact that Alice had called before I left and wasn't here now told me I wasn't in a life threatening situation.

"Why are you here?" I asked.

She cocked her head to the side. "Shouldn't I be asking you that. This isn't your home, little boy."

"What do you know of my home?" I snarled.

I wanted to attack her, but even in the middle of the night there was still bustling going on in the train yard. Not close enough that they were visible, but close enough that I could hear them – which meant they were close enough that they would be collateral damage if we got in a fight. It made it the most neutral ground that we'd ever been on, though.

"I know you choose to make yourself miserable. You have it all, you foolish boy. You have a man you love, a family to call your own, a home... and you reject it all. Your self-made purgatory is actually entertaining enough to watch that I've even considered letting you live."

"You know nothing about me."

"That's where you're wrong. I've been studying you, boy. So I know you're going to die. Eventually. But not yet. And do you know why you're going to die, Beau?"

"Because you blame me for your mate's death... Personally I think he had it coming."

Her eyes flashed with anger, but she didn't come closer to me. "Would you like to hear my story, Beau? It doesn't have a happy ending, I assure you, but it may explain to you why your fate is such, at least it might if you're capable of learning."

In spite of myself, I was curious, so I gave one truncated nod.

"I was born in the early 1550s in London to a scullery maid and the house's master. I remember very little about my father. I was nothing more than an unwanted daughter to him. My older brother, on the other hand, was much more favored. He too, was a unwanted child. But my older brother had received our father's dark brown hair and blue eyes. He did not have status, not really, but he did have a place in the house. Andrew was five years older than me, and though he could have ignored me in much the same way as our father did, he chose to dote on me instead. It was because of his love for me that I wasn't cast to the streets after our mother died when I was only five.

"My brother had just enough sway over our father that I was allowed to remain in the house – as little more than a slave, but it at least gave me a roof over my head and food to eat. It wasn't until our father passed when I was about ten or eleven that I realized just how dangerous the world could be. Andrew and I were cast out on the streets after our father's death – the lady of the house had wanted nothing to do with us, she did not want the continued reminder of her husband's infidelity.

"With no place to go, we found ourselves homeless. My brother was old enough that finding work for a day was easy, helping a shopkeeper to stock shelves or move boxes. It was enough to earn a couple of testoons – you would call them shillings, boy." Until then, it had almost felt as if she'd forgotten I was here, but I should have known I couldn't be that lucky. "It was little more than enough to pick up a loaf of bread and sometimes a small square of cheese or a pint of milk – barely enough to feed even one of us, really. But we made by.

"As winter neared, and the cold started to set in, it became clear that something would have to change. My brother might have been able to survive the winter – his age over me would have possibly given him the edge he needed to make it through the cold winter on the streets. But neither of us was what one would truly call healthy, not even in those times, let alone by today's standards.

"My brother got lucky though and found us work as stable hands in a small estate. The man who owned the estate was a drunkard and mean. He liked to beat anyone he could get his hands on. More often than not, that was me. I stuck out because of my red hair. Andrew tried to step in and protect me a few times, but it tended to earn even more ire towards me.

"About the time I was twelve we left his estate. Andrew had hoped we'd find better work, or at the very least, some place that was safer. Unfortunately, a young man and a young girl are not ideal help – especially those without any form of legal paperwork. We ended up finding shelter in a bordello. People tend to believe that the legal prostitution industry in England back then was strictly women, but the truth is that if a person was willing to pay enough, most brothels would make anything available to the patrons.

"I came down with a cough a couple months after we moved there so Andrew went out to get some medicine from an apothecary. He never came back." Victoria broke off as she started to walk parallel with the tracks. If I didn't know better, I'd almost believe she'd forgot I was here, but I did know better. "The months that followed were hard, the bordello was less than happy to have lost one of it's bigger money makers. I wasn't what they wanted, of course, but they figured I would do – at least to make up some of their loss.

"I escaped a few months later, breaking out a window in the second floor of the building to get away. I was fortunate and happened across a blacksmith getting on in his years. He needed an apprentice bad enough that he was willing to overlook the documents and references I couldn't provide him. Working for most of my day everyday at a fire hammering metal wasn't easy work, but the blacksmith was a gentle man. The years that followed were some of the safest I had as a human, though I won't say they were happy years. I missed my brother dearly and often wondered what had happened to him.

"I was a young woman by the time the owner of the bordello caught up with me. I owed them a window, reparations for damages, money that was lost.. at least in his mind. I fled. I wasn't certain what else to do. Looking back, I probably could have gone to the blacksmith with my problems and I think he would have helped me out, but the thought didn't cross my mind at the time.

"I managed to sneak into the loft of a stable to hide for a few days. It was while I was there that Andrew found me. He was different, but at the same time, much the same. He didn't look like he'd aged a day since the the last time I'd seen him, but he looked healthier than ever, full of life... It was easy to ignore the red eyes. He wanted to know why I wasn't with the blacksmith anymore, why I'd run. It didn't seem odd to me that he knew that, I suppose some part of me must have thought he was some sort of angel, I don't really remember the details of my thought process at the time. I told him what had happened. Andrew made some vague comment about killing the bordello owner. It was the strangest thing, because my brother never used to be the violent type.

"Ultimately he decided against it. He asked me to trust him. I did, completely... Even after all that time. He picked me up like I weighed nothing and sped away from the stable at a speed that – at the time – seemed impossible. When he got to a house out in the country, he apologized to me. I remember that very well, mostly because I had no clue why he was saying sorry. That was when he bit me, of course. I remember him leaning forward like he'd intended to kiss me or something, and then the burning.

"I screamed and thrashed for the three days of the change. It was a good thing it was the countryside... I dare not imagine how people would have reacted if we'd still been in London with the way I screamed. When I finished the transition to vampire, I discovered that my brother had found a family in the time period that I'd missed him.

"His maker's name was Hildebrand, a man who saw himself as a savior of sorts. There were two other vampires living there, Merle and Hammond. Both of them had been turned by Hildebrand. Hildebrand was a few hundred years old with no notable features, though many would have considered him good looking, I suppose. Reality was that it was hard to consider anyone good looking when one compared themselves with Hammond. Merle was the oldest of Hildebrand's creations. He was turned in the early 1500s and Hammond about forty years later. They moved to England from Germany when Hammond was still a newborn.

"Hildebrand had found my brother on the street when he had gone to the apothecary, noticed the scars and thin body and had believed my brother was possibly a slave. He decided to save my brother from such a life which was why he turned him. My brother remembered me though and as soon as he thought he had enough control to come back for me, he did. I didn't know it, but he'd visited me the first time about a year before he actually appeared to me. He'd found me at the blacksmith working as an apprentice originally and had determined that I was safe, happy even. He'd checked on me every couple of months after that. When he'd discovered that I'd run away, he decided to intervene.

"I was happy, with them, my family. Some days were better than others and some were worse, just as in any normal life. Hammond made getting food for us easy as he had a very special gift, an ability to glamour anyone into doing what he desired. I'd been a vampire for about two years when Hildebrand found Nouel, a slave that had been born in Algeria. Hildebrand did the same as he had with Andrew and changed the young man to save him.

"He'd only been with us for about six months when the Volturi came – Aro leading the hunt. He had Alec, Marcus, Cauis, Anastasia, Fahima and Sandra with him. They came to kill us for making a nuisance of ourselves, or at least that's how Aro righteously claimed his reasons. Hildebrand presented evidence that we had never been, all that, conspicuous. Aro had him killed immediately.

"He held out a metaphorical olive branch, claiming that if we changed our ways, we'd live. He was lying though. I could sense it. He intended to kill us all – except Hammond. Hammond went over to them without much thought, though even then, as he stepped to their side as if under a spell, he held onto enough of his own will to use his glamour to convince Aro and the others that reading his mind was completely unnecessary.

"In the moment that they were distracted by him, I told the others to run. All four of us that remained, fled. I wasn't there, but I heard later they caught up to Merle first. My brother and Nouel died too. None of them survived the week. The Volturi couldn't catch me though. I have a superior instinct on how to avoid death and am very good at it.

"I traveled the vast majority of Europe and Asia in the decades that followed. There were some areas I just knew to avoid, of course, parts of China, the northern area of Russia, the occasional town in the Middle East. It was easy to do.

"I finally returned to London in the early eighteen hundreds. I immediately gained the attention of a vampire. He chased me from London to France and on into Russia. He had more tenacity than the Volturi ever had..." She looked off, her eyes distant. "I don't know which of us started to lower our natural defenses first. But eventually he stopped hunting me for the purpose of harming me – it became something else. For both of us.

"James was the most interesting vampire I'd ever met. He wouldn't stand out in a crowd, not even among most humans, it was almost as if when he was changed, he had been made for the sole purpose of blending into his surroundings. Sparks didn't fly when we first met, it took years for us to be anything other than curious about each other. One of us constantly dancing on the fringe of the other's life.

"He enjoyed the hunt, and not just the hunt of humans, but the hunt of prey in general. And his prey could come in any form, be it human, werewolf, vampire... When he decided on a target, he'd chase it. I was curious enough about him to follow. If he got too close to something that felt too dangerous to me, I'd always run. Eventually, he'd chase me. It took time, but eventually our relationship became more, more than curiosity, more than hunter and prey, more than wielder and tool.

"I loved him, every one of the hunts I helped him with, every game of cat and mouse, every plan. He and I were close, intimate, in love. He was the absolute best at what he did..." Her eyes flashed to mine, pure unadulterated hatred and anger in her eyes. "Then he caught wind of you, with your family of foolish protectors. He should have finished you off, you don't deserve the gift he accidentally gave you. He was my all, and your family took him from me."

She sneered, "And here you are. You have it all. You have a mate and a family. And you're wasting it. You should take advantage of what you have while you have the chance. I actually want to see you happy. It's hardly enjoyable, killing someone who is already so foolishly miserable. I will still kill you, no matter what, because you don't get to keep James's gift. It's just a question of if I kill just you, or your family too. And that part is up to you.

"I originally wanted to destroy Edward's spirit, but you seem to be doing that just by choosing to avoid him. So I think I'll destroy yours, and if I can't watch your realization that you're going to die while you are madly in love, then I'll break your spirit some other way."

I wanted to close the distance between her and me and rip her head off. I could feel my muscles tensing in preparation, and in that moment, I was certain I could do it, I was also distinctly aware of the the humans in the area, two of which were working on a rail car only a few hundred feet away. I doubted they'd heard any of Victoria's monologue, and even if they had, they'd just write it off as someone who was off their rocker and continue their work. But even two humans who were focusing on simply making a night's pay would notice the sound of stone being ripped apart if I attacked Victoria here.

"There are eight of us in all, Victoria. You're outnumbered. There's no way you can possibly win."

"Isn't there? As I stated, I'm very adept at avoiding life-threatening situations, and yet I. Keep. Coming Back." She tilted her head to the side in a way that was completely foreign to a human, but neither of us were human. "If any of you were truly a threat to me, I'd be long gone. You might want to think that over."

"If you want me dead so bad, then here I am. Come and get me," I snarled. I crouched low as I made a decision. My hands were already so soaked in blood and filth that they'd never be clean again anyways.

She wiggled her eyebrows once. "I would, but we have company, and while you certainly are no threat to me. I'm slightly more hesitant to try my luck with one of your pretenders. They're a bit more unpredictable... I'd stop him before he makes a scene, if I were you."

She slid behind the rail car she'd come to stand next to as she'd walked parallel along the tracks.

I spun around just in time to see Jake racing forward. I stepped in his direct path. He skidded to a halt at the last possible moment. There was less than two inches of space between his snout and my body.

"We need to go, Jake," I said softly.

He growled, taking a stepped to the side to try and get around me, I mimicked him.

"There are human workers here, Jake. And you are a giant wolf in the middle of Seattle." Far south end, actually, but who was counting?

He growled again.

"Jake, you try and follow her and you will create a scene." My words didn't seem to sway him very much, as he leaned to the side again. "I won't kill an innocent for you, Jake." The words were out of my mouth before my mind had a chance to consult with me that it was a bad idea. Still, I knew, the instant that I said them, I meant them. I wouldn't do that. I wasn't sure what it said about me that I'd let my best friend metaphorically drown if he messed up.

It had the desired effect though as he pulled up short, a whine slipping from his muzzle.

"Let's get out of here," I muttered.

…

We weren't very far out of Seattle when he shifted back to human form. He pulled on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt while I looked away from him.

"What the hell were you thinking, Beau?" he shouted at me.

"I didn't know I was going to run into Victoria. I was looking for Angela."

"And then what were you going to do?"

"I was going to try to help her. If she's been turned and doesn't have anyone to turn to, then she needs someone to guide her."

"Yeah right." The words were heavily sarcastic.

I opened my mouth to ask what he meant by that, but suddenly a cellphone in his shorts rang. I knew the ringtone, and it wasn't the one that his cell was set to. He pulled the phone out of his pocket and looked at the name on the screen before tossing it to me.

I grabbed it, glancing briefly at the screen to see Edward's name before I answered the phone. "Hello?"

"Beau, where are you?" The concern and fear in his voice was impossible not to hear.

"I'm a few miles outside of Seattle with Jake."

"Thank god." The instant relief in his voice was clear. I wasn't a hundred percent sure what to make of it. "Alice has been singing show tunes for the last few hours, and I knew she was hiding something, but she's fairly good at it when she wants to be. She finally slipped just a few minutes ago that she saw you going to Seattle and running into Victoria. I don't know what she was thinking, letting you go off like that."

"She knew I wasn't in any danger. Victoria and I were in neutral territory."

"Did Victoria admit to making the newborns in Seattle?"

"No, she isn't doing that. If she was, Alice would have seen it. You know she would have. And besides, she would have told me if she was the one making them. She wanted to tell me information, to brag... She definitely would have bragged about that if she was turning a ton of vampires." I sighed. "I'll come by your house and tell you what she told me later, Edward. But I need a little bit of time. I'm a bit confused and I don't want to accidentally say something that you no longer want to hear."

There was a brief quietness, and I was fairly sure I heard the sound of an engine stopping, but I wasn't a hundred percent certain. "Okay," Edward finally agreed softly.

I closed the phone before either of us could say more, whispering quietly before it was quitely shut. "I love you, I miss you."

I stuffed the phone in my pocket as Jake muttered something in Quileute and turned his back on me, walking away.