Chapter Text
When Renesmee is three she looks seven and feels somewhere in between.
She looks up upon the paintings in the house. The studies of Christianity that seem to cover every inch of the home, burning away at her mind. Leaving behind words of the devil and hellfire upon her skin.
It is something that she has never noticed before.
Though now she feels as if she was a fish out of water with so little knowledge of the world.
When Renesmee is five she looks to be thirteen, yet she still doesn't fill in place.
The world still fascinates her. From politics to history to cultures and science.
It brings upon this sudden craving of knowledge in a way that is new to her. It is new to everyone else as well. They do not care for politics or history. Culture and science mean little to them. Because deep down, beneath those prose colored words is a reason that sparks a small flame beneath her skin.
The reason is humanity.
Humans.
They seem to forget what they once were. What Renesmee is apart of.
It leaves her with a sudden urge to jump through the window-to leave.
Eventually she does leave, but it is not how she would have liked it. Maybe because it isn't truly freedom and the feeling of being talked to like a child is still there. Though she supposes that she is one. Just not in the way that everyone wants her to be.
"Your too young for college."
Your not taking Jake with you.
"We've been over this."
Over this for years, because Renesmee doesn't want Ivy League colleges.
"Call every day."
Those are the last words that she hears from her mother. They have eternity together. An eternity that she wanted, yet nothing is perfect, and Renesmee tries to be as imperfect as possible. So she leaves Washington and takes a bus down. Down into the southwest of America.
She leaves America for Baja California and it is there that she meets an American from Texas.
His name is Callum Stiles and he is a killer.
She learns this by how she found him. Breathing with a steady breathe above the bloody corpse of a pimp. She cleans him of blood, licks it away like a cat, and when she pulls back his eyes are on her.
Eyes the color of blue and silver and green and grey.
Beautiful. Unlike the eyes of everyone else she has ever known: gold and red and onyx.
He kills pimps, abusers of women, and rapist. A product of watching his father kill his mother, of finding his wife dead in their apartment, of never finding his baby daughter that he lost. Callum is an avenger of women and Renesmee joins him.
A human killer and someone who is not entirely so.
He never questions it. So when they stop alongside the American-Mexican boarder Renesmee writes a letter. She tells him that he was wrong, that killing those who do bad doesn't make you a monster, but she can't find herself sending it. Not even when Callum offers to do it.
Because Edward wouldn't believe her.
Because in that white house in Forks, women are still stuck in the Victorian Era, and she is still an innocent girl.
They part ways in Arizona.
Callum promises to meet back up with her in two months time: South Dakota, by the southern boarder.
Renesmee keeps that promise and heads back to Washington.
Charlie welcomes her with open arms.
They eat fish fry and salad, with leftover homemade pie on the side that is dripping with strawberries.
She tells him that she didn't know that he could cook.
He replies with, Bella never let me cook under her belief that I couldn't.
It is supposed to be a joke. She knows this, but there is a cold edge beneath it. So Renesmee begins to learn things that her own mother never knew about: Charlie can cook. He grows strawberries in a small garden behind the house and he knows how to make it into a healthy jam. He can stitch, fix just about everything, and he has a collection of poetry books and James Bond novels.
They go fishing together and at the end of her two month period she tells Charlie that she has to leave. A promise for a friend and Charlie understands.
He tells me that I am not my mothers kid. That that is a good thing. That he knows I am telling the truth.
It leaves a bitter taste in my mouth; that my mother would throw away such an amazing father. Treat him like that...
By the time she leaves, Charlie has a leather jacket and a flannel shirt in hand. A set of keys rest in the pocket, and in the other is a novel of poetry and James Bond and...a cook book. 'Family cookbook. I want you to have it', was all that was said.
She leaves with items close to Charlie's heart, racing alongside busy highways on a motorcycle that he had originally planned to give to Bella.
The trip leaves her wishing to be human, but fate has handed her the cards. She just has to deal with them.
She finds Callum.
He ask about the bike. About everything and she does the same. They spend a good amount of time like that before they hit the road. This time Tennessee is their goal; Callum wants to see the sunsets.
They do many things together: they eat breakfest at cheap buffets, dance together in abandoned homes, and they bring justice with a switch blade and a bite.
Callum kisses her that night. Beneath a Tennessee sunset, with his lips tasting of blood and mint and coco. It is an intoxicating thing, but it isn't her first kiss. Imprinting took that from her. But fucking so-called destiny with a middle finger was how she was treating life.
She just wishes that Callum had been her first kiss, but he is her first in many ways.
When they arrive at the next town she finds a payphone. Putting in the number that she knows she hears the voice of her mother.
Renesmee wants to talk about Callum, about holding hands in bars, and hunting down a rapist that got away from the legal system. She wants to talk about the war in the Middle East, about women's rights and pro-choice programs. She wants to ask if they voted or if they have been watching the French Election.
But Bella Cullen lives in a world of Imprinting and soulmates. Of words of beauty and wealth and forever. She has no concern of the world or the humans. She wouldn't like the idea of Renesmee experimenting. Of how she looks at actors and actresses, and how her and Callum will play a game of 'Kill, Fuck, Marry'.
So Renesmee avoids all questions that hold meaning to her and when her mother brings up the topic of 'Jacob missing her' she cuts the call short.
The next time she goes to Charlie's she takes Callum with her.
Leah Clearwater is there; she seems shocked by the outcome of Renesmee. Looking upon her with a new view and Leah finds Callum 'an ass but a funny ass'.
Then there is the girl beside her and Renesmee can barely remember, so Leah explains.
She explains that this is Claire Young. An imprint. A girl of only fourteen who is currently going through hell. A girl who lost her parents because they were deemed by the tribe as 'unfit'. A girl who lost everything and was forced to wear a silver band upon her finger.
Callum suggest pedowolf hunting.
Renesmee almost agrees to it. It is their way of life after all.
Leah, however, cannot deal with murder and Claire is mentally falling apart.
Charlie helps. With his greying hair and sunshine smile he almost brings Claire back from a dark place. Almost. On the second week they find her floating in the bathtub with knife plunged into her-
Then everything darkens.
Claire hadn't told them everything, but the police autopsy showed enough. There had been ripping-the aftermath of rape-and there had been a child sitting in her womb. The womb of a fourteen year old girl.
The four don't speak after that: a cop, a hybrid, a serial killer, and a werewolf.
All feeling as if they could have done more.
When they lay Claire to rest Quil is there with a pack and tribe behind him.
They treat Quil like the victim; not the man who deemed a young girls parents 'unfit' when compared to him. The man who raped her for the sake of her happiness as an imprint. Though Renesmee isn't surpirsed by that. These people only care about getting a baby for the sake of stronger wolves.
Emily's face proves that.
Claire, though, is all the proof you need.
Renesmee dyes her hair blue and adds a streak through Callum's own thick black hair. Both of them have grown their hair out, tying back some, letting their bangs frame their face as the rest falls down against their shoulders. He smiles at her and when Renesmee feels of his stubble against his cheek, when she kisses him, she thinks
this is love in one of its many forms.
When they leave that night they find Quil.
Callum is ready with his switchblade out and as normal Renesmee takes down their prey.
For the first time in years Renesmee uses her 'gift'. She floods his mind with her own, showing him what he did to Claire in a way that his Imprinting couldn't.
They skin him alive afterwards.
Hanging him like a deer with his cock in his ass.
Renesmee thinks that this still isn't enough for Claire though.
They get married in Portland over night with a tired Leah and Charlie as their witnesses.
Leah goes off to deal with the aftermath of it all. Promising to get them a kitchen set or 'some shit like that' if they ever settled down.
Charlie says 'you'll know where to find me', 'love you kid', and 'you have been to me, what your mother never could be'.
Callum kisses her and Renesmee makes that second call.
She tells her mother that she is married before hanging up, because fucking destiny isn't something that she agrees with.
When Renesmee turns Callum she knows that it is the right choice; even if they don't know how this will turn out. The possibilities of him being more of a hybrid than a vampire is the largest possibility. One that she wants, and one that he agrees upon.
Not because he wants her wealth or beauty or the gift of immortality.
It is because he loves her and she loves him in a way that no Cullen would ever understand.
And Renesmee knows that, she is fine with that: with the blood of pimps and Tennessee sunsets and a man named Callum Stiles.