Chapter Text
Ava
“Where do you think she could have gone?” Ana sighed for what felt like the hundredth time. I glanced over to the passenger seat, finding her rubbing her forehead just above her brow bones, I assumed to ease the headache that had been developing since we had received dad’s phone call less than twenty-four hours ago. Ana had been suffering from chronic headaches for the last few years, since a car accident when we were seventeen resulted in a pretty severe concussion.
I turned back to the road, continuing north up the 101 as we approached the small town of Forks. “I don't even know,” I replied, grip tightening on the wheel.
Isabella, our younger sister, was not a runner. She wasn’t a spontaneous decision maker. She wasn’t someone who just disappeared with a friend with no explanation of where they gone or when they would be back.
If anything, that was my thing. Out of the three of us, I had always been the least constrained. A spur-of-the-moment trip? Count me in. An impromptu girls night out at the bars? Lets go. A sudden change of plans? I’ll figure things out when I get there.
Ana was slightly more cautious when it came to these sorts of things than I was. She needed at least basic information before committing, but most likely she already had a list of clothes she was planning to bring, a plan of action once we arrived, and about three different contingency plans should things go awry.
Bella, though? Not even a little bit. The second that girl hears the word “plane” she’s running for the hills.
So, imagine our surprise when Ana received a call from our father yesterday morning telling us the girl has up and disappeared with nothing more than a post-it note on the kitchen table saying that her boyfriend was in trouble and she would simply…be back? Dad didn't even have to ask. I already had the car running and a bag packed by the time Ana hung up the phone.
“For the love of God,” Ana groaned, dropping her hand and letting her head fall back against the headrest, “this last year has been one thing after another in this family.”
I winced slightly, sparing her another glance as we reached the edge of town. “To my defense, most of it has been her. I only had that one little situation…”
Ana smirked, eyes flicking over to meet mine across the narrow space. “I wouldn’t call being turned into a vampire a ‘little situation’, Ava.”
“I would,” I huffed, shoulders slumping slightly as I flicked on my turn signal, “it’s not like I killed anyone.”
Which was true. In the three months that I have been this way, I had yet to take a life. I think it chalked up to luck more than anything else. From the little bit that Ana and I could piece together through lore and research and needlessly dangerous trials on my part, we couldn’t exactly decide one way or another if my little superpower was a common ability among vampires or not.
Waking up behind the science hall on campus two days after new years had been disorienting at best, traumatizing at worst. I had been left behind the thick bushes lining the windows of the building, the dress I had worn on New Years Eve torn and stained with blood. My blood. I couldn’t remember much of that night. Not after my friend, Stacey, had brought back the second round of tequila shots. Instead, I woke up in the early hours of the morning, the sun just beginning to peak over the trees, and feeling…different.
Stronger. Better.
Where before my vision had been slightly blurry–enough to warrant a pair of glasses when in class so that I could read the board–I had opened my eyes to find everything in high-def. Maybe better. Everything had been so clear. I could see the intricate details of the leaves and bark on the trees from across the street. I could see each individual feather of the blue jay sitting on a branch. Each blade of grass swaying in the breeze.
Sounds were even better. I could pick up on each college boy snoring in their dorms from across the square. Cars driving down the highway six blocks south.
Smells were the worst. The campus had an everlasting undertone of sweat and liquor that seemed to take up permanent residence in my nose until it finally disappeared somewhere around Ogden.
But none of that compared to the constant thirst. I had woken up with the worst cotton mouth I had ever had. Even after stumbling my way home, rubbing at my nose because something smelled delicious, I just couldn’t figure out what , I had downed what felt like a gallon of water to ease the ache in my throat only to vomit it back up with no reprieve. Not until Ana came home that was.
Ana had spent that weekend with her boyfriend at Snowy Range Ski Resort in Wyoming and had come home only to find me dirty, bloody and a little fucking crazed in our tiny apartment kitchen.
And all I had wanted was her blood.
It took every ounce of control. Every bit of stubbornness, of spite, of whatever the fuck else there was not to rip open my twin sisters neck and bleed her dry.
No. NO! Stop it! This is Ana. You don't want her blood. You’re not thirsty. It’ll go away. It’s. Not. There.
And I blinked. Just like that, in a matter of a heart beat, the ache in my throat had almost entirely disappeared. All that was left was a slightly irritating itch, the only indication of my hunger, but I had no longer wanted to kill her.
Instead, I cried. As much as an undead monster could cry.
That was the first time I had used my illusions. It was the only one I had never let up.
“Speaking of,” Ana mused, glancing over her shoulder into the backseat of the car, “we’re almost home. Are you hungry? It’s been a few days.” She reached toward the cooler, where sandwiches and bottles of water sat side by side with several blood bags she had snatched from the blood bank she, very conveniently, worked at.
I heaved a sigh as I held out a hand. “Might as well. I’m sure dad is in a tizzy which will only stress me out.” I had learned quickly that stress sometimes caused my illusions to waver, and if there was ever a time that I needed that shit under control, it was in front of our Chief of Police father. Ana passed me a bag of O-neg with a reusable metal straw and a pointed smirk. I rolled my eyes. “Seriously?”
“I’m not about to let you get blood all over the car.”
“But it makes the blood taste funny.”
“Stop whining and chug.” I shifted with a half-assed snarl, using my knee to keep the steering wheel steady as I stabbed the bag with the straw and began downing its contents. We were less than two blocks away and I could already see the cruiser sitting outside of the cream colored house. An old, rusted pickup truck was parked in the driveway. Bella’s, I assumed. Charlie had mentioned he had bought the truck off of Billy Black just before she moved up from Phoenix.
I downed the blood in a series of gulps before passing the empty bag and straw back to my sister who stored it away carefully in the portable cooler as I pulled up behind Charlie’s cruiser. I cut the ignition just as the front door opened, our father stepping out onto the front porch, face pinched and eyes slightly glassy.
I didn't bother to look at Ana as I muttered, “I’m going to kill Bella.”
“You and me both,” she sighed, shoving open the passenger door and stepping out.
“Hey girls,” Charlie greeted, shuffling down the front steps in a pair of fish slippers. I shut the door to the car gently, though it still sounded like a slam, and offered him a sad smile.
“Hi dad.” Ana hurried around the car first, pulling dad into a quick hug and kissing him on his scruffy cheek. He hadn't shaved in a couple of days. He turned his attention back to me, blinking slightly as he took me in.
“Hey dad,” I muttered, stepping into his arms and carefully wrapping my own around him. Ana watched me carefully from where she stood a foot or two away. Charlie pat my back twice before pulling back, frowning as his eyes scanned my face.
“Hey, kiddo,” his lips tipped down, “you look a little different than the last time I saw you.”
I shrugged, casually, playing it off. While Ana and I looked extremely similar, we weren’t quite identical. I had cast a minor illusion over my features about thirty minutes ago, enough to make me look less model-esque and more…human. A beauty mark here. Some discoloration there. And my eyes…I changed them to the same whiskey brown that Ana shared. “New skincare,” I dismissed and smiled again, “and it’s been a few years.” The last time we had seen him was our high school graduation in Phoenix.
“Yeah,” he sighed, “it has.” He turned away, hand still on my shoulder and waved my sister toward the door. “Come on in, I ordered pizza.” I allowed him to move toward the door with Ana while I turned back, grabbing our backpacks and cooler out of the back seat before following them into the house.
Not a damn thing had changed. The furniture was the same. The decorations the same. The paint was the same. The only thing new might have been a taxidermy fish or two lining the wall leading up the steps to the second floor. The only sign that there was a female living in the house at all were Bella’s shoes sitting by the front door.
I took a quick whiff as I shut the door gently behind me and set our bags on the boot box beside the door. The air was slightly stale and smelt of pizza, fish and an underlying woodsy scent that seemed to surround the entire town. “Makes sense,” I muttered to myself, “we’re in the middle of a rain forest.” But there was something else there too. Something old, but still lingering.
“Ava?” My head snapped toward the kitchen, my feet already moving. Ana and Charlie were already sitting at the table, slicing of pizza on their plates. Dad looked up at me expectantly. “Pepperoni, right?”
I swallowed the venom pooling in my mouth and nodded. “Please.”
It tastes delicious. It tastes how it should. I will enjoy this.
And I did. For the moment, at least.
“So, dad,” Ana picked up the conversation once I was settled, her eyes flitting back to me occasionally to ensure I was alright, that I was acting normal, “what the hell happened?”
Charlie sighed heavily, already halfway through his slice, and set it back on his plate. He wiped his hands on a napkin, staring down at the table in front of him. He looked older. More tired. “I don't know, girls,” he started. “She’s been going through a lot the last few months.”
“You said he left her first, right?” I asked, forcing myself to swallow despite the illusion of taste.
“He did,” Charlie nodded, “back in September. His foster dad, Carlisle, got a new job in L.A. or something…I don't know…but she took is really hard. I mean really hard.” I frowned, glancing sideways to Ana who shared the same look.
“What do you mean?” Charlie huffed another sigh and looked up, glancing between us.
“I mean that I couldn't get her out of bed some days,” he explained. “She didn't go to school for a week right after he left. She was practically catatonic all through the holidays.”
My nostrils flared, hands falling toward my plate. “Dad, why didn't you say anything?”
Charlie shook his head. “I didn't want to bother you girls. You had finals and your friends…”
I watched as Ana reached out, laying her hand over his and squeezed. “Dad, we’re family. We’re always here to help, its what we do.”
Charlie couldn’t help the slight twitch of his lips as he looked to her. “I know. And I appreciate it.”
I swallowed another nibble of pizza, just about halfway through my own slice before I set it down, hoping it would be enough. “So, she’s gone off to what…save this guy then?”
Charlie shrugged, his eyes darkening. “Apparently. All she said was that she was with his sister and that he was in trouble.” He looked away with a scowl. “I always knew he was no good.”
I couldn’t help the snort that escaped. “How could someone named Edward be trouble?” Ana shot me an amused glance, her hazel eyes glinting. I knew she was thinking the same thing I was.
“I don't know,” Charlie grumbled as he picked up his pizza again, “but your sister was fine, a good kid until she met him. Did your mother tell you that he was the reason she ran back to Phoenix that one time?”
I canted my head slightly but it was Ana that replied. “When she broke her leg?”
Charlie nodded. “He and his father went down to talk to her apparently and they were there when she fell out the window.”
It was my turn to sigh as I fell back in the chair, crossing my arms over my chest. “Leave it up to Bell to do something like that.” Charlie ignored my statement.
“And when he left in September, he left her out in the middle of the woods. What kind of man breaks up with their girlfriend and leaves her out in the woods?”
“An idiot?” Ana offered, reaching across the table and stealing the rest of my pizza. Charlie paused, noticing the interaction and raised a brow. I shrugged, casually.
“I had a sandwich in the car.” He didn't push it.
“Okay, so anytime something goes wrong with Bella, it’s because of this guy?” Charlie snorted as he reached back into the pizza box in the center of the table.
“From my perspective at least.”
“Wonderful, I’m so excited to meet him.” Ana shot me a warning look. “What? I just want to talk.”
Charlie chuckled, catching our attention once more as he shook his head. “I see you two haven't changed a bit.”
I couldn’t help the slight smile on my lips as I ducked my head, eyes on the table. “Nope,” I muttered. “Not at all.”
~~*~~
It wasn’t long after dinner that Charlie allowed us to go up to our shared bedroom, understanding that we had just driven over twenty hours with little rest. Ana grabbed her bag and on the cooler as I shouldered my own backpack and followed her slowly up the stairs. Ana didn't seem to notice my hesitation as I reached the landing, my nostrils flaring, eyes spinning directly toward Bella’s bedroom where the door was barely cracked.
It was there. Old and stale…but familiar.
Ana was already shoving her way into our room across the hall from Bella's, dumping our bags on the floor between the twin beds. I remained in the hallway, fingers curling at my sides. I sniffed again. It wasn’t bad, per say, but there was something about it that set me on edge.
“Ava?” Ana stepped out of the bedroom, leaning around the corner. “What are you–”
I was in Bella’s room in a flash, the door hitting the wall as I stopped in the center of the room, scanning everything. Her bed. Her dresser. Her desk. The clothes in the hamper. Her backpack. Her homework. The pictures on the wall. It was here. In Bella’s room. It was drenched in it.
Honey. Lilacs. And something…diseased? My nose wrinkled.
But there was something there. A familiarity. A–
“Ava?” Ana was in the doorway now and she was the only thing keeping me from ripping the room apart. “What’s wrong?”
I took a step back, turning over my shoulder as the illusion fell from my eyes. “There’s been a vampire in here.”
Ana
I blinked, standing frozen in the doorway to Bella's bedroom. The illusion had fallen from Ava's eyes, leaving me staring into the crimson gaze that had grown so familiar over the last three months. "How do you know?" I could see the tension in my sisters shoulders and the way her fingers flexed at her sides. She was barely holding her rage in check.
"I don't know," she whispered, her eyes shifting to look around the room again. I watched as they settled on the window. Her jaw clenched. "It's just a feeling. A...knowing."
"I believe you." I told her, honestly.
The last few months had been...difficult to say the least. One of the things we had to learn-I had to learn- was trusting my sisters instincts. She and I weren't on the same level anymore. We weren't the same at all...really. Ava was something else entirely and I was just...me.
There had been a moment about a month ago when she and I had gone out to dinner at a sports bar to try and test her control. She had been doing great, and I needed to use the restroom. When I left the bathroom, however, I had been cornered by a guy I had seen watching us from the bar. He seemed normal enough at first, complimenting my shirt and making some kind of stupid comment about whatever game had been playing. When he asked for my number and I rejected him, however, that's when things got dicey. The second he had stepped into my space and my back hit the wall, Ava had been at my side. Whatever that man had seen on her face was enough to have him scurrying with his tail between his legs and by the time we exited the hallway where the bathrooms were located, he was long gone.
"He didn't just want your number," Ava had told me that night when we returned home. "I could smell it."
Standing there in Bella's room, I couldn't smell anything out of the ordinary. Her room had a faint scent of something floral, possibly perfume, but aside from that there was nothing my human nose could identify.
"Was it recent?" Ava shook her head, exhaling heavily.
"No," she muttered, "it's old. Several months old. But its stuck around long enough that whoever it was spent quite a bit of time in here." Her head turned again, red eyes meeting my own. Despite everything that's changed, despite not being identical, despite...everything, it was like Ava and I shared a part of a brain. I sucked in a breath sharply, eyes flicking around the room.
"You're not thinking..." Ava growled, turning on her heel and storming toward the door. I stepped out of the way, barely quick enough not to get shoulder-checked by the she-hulk as she stomped toward our shared bedroom.
"That our baby sister has been dating a vampire this whole time? Yeah, that's exactly what I'm thinking."
"But how would that even happen?" I shut the door as quickly as possible, facing Ava where she paced like an angry tiger in a cage. "How did she even cross paths with one?"
"How did I?" She shot back. I winced slightly, eyes dropping to the floor.
"Sorry."
Ava stopped midstride, going unnaturally still. She sighed and I glanced up, watching the tension fall from her shoulders as she worked to calm her anxious nerves. "It's not your fault, Ana," she insisted. "I just...what are the fucking chances?"
I bit my lip slightly, leaning back against the doorway and crossed my arms over my chest. My mind was spinning a million miles a minute and I knew Ava wasn't much better. In the span of three months our lives had been flipped on its axis, everything we had ever known suddenly became so trivial, so meaningless. I swallowed the lump in my throat, nails digging into the flesh of my upper arms through the thin Henley I wore. My eyes flicked up at Ava's movement, watching as she collapsed onto her bed on the left side of the room, the wood frame groaning beneath her. "Careful," I muttered, a reminder. Ava was still learning how to curb her newfound strength. "Is there...is there any other way that a vampire could have gotten into her room?"
Ava glanced up at me again, her dark hair falling down over her shoulder in beautiful, silky waves. God, I couldn't help the slight twinge of jealousy every time I saw her. Since her change she was so utterly perfect in every way. She always had been, if I'm being honest. Ava had always been the better looking twin. The more confident twin. The friendlier twin. The twin everybody wanted to come out with them to a football game, to partner with them on a project, to attend sleepovers. I had always felt like the second choice, the last resort. Ava had always been so effortlessly beautiful, always primped and polished. I was lucky most days to throw my rats nest of hair into a bun and cover up the dark circles beneath my eyes with concealer.
"If that vampire had only come once, maybe even twice, that scent would have been gone by now." Ava explained. Her eyes flashed and dropped to the ground again as she leaned forward with her elbows on her knees. "It was stale. Like, months old stale."
I sighed. "Which falls in line with when he left her six months ago." She nodded. "Alright. One of my sisters is dating a vampire, and the other one is a vampire...where do I sign up?"
Ava's eyes snapped back to mine with a snarl. "You're not funny." A shot her a wink, pushing off the door and striding toward my bed.
"I think I am."
Ava rolled her eyes and I noticed her jaw shifting. She was probably biting her tongue. "Has she answered you yet?"
I collapsed onto the mattress, reaching into the back pocket of my jeans and glanced at my phone. No new messages. "Nope." A low growl escaped through her teeth.
"Of course not."
I shifted myself, pulling my pillow down below my head and kicking off my sneakers. "Listen, A. There's nothing we can do right now until she gets home-"
"From wherever the hell she is."
I nodded, slightly amused. "From wherever the hell she is. And if she happens to come home with Edward Scissorhands, we'll deal with it." Red eyes flashed up to mine again.
"You mean, I'll deal with it." I smirked.
"I mean, I would, but I don't exactly have..." I raised my hands toward my mouth, pointing my two index fingers downward to mimic fangs. Ava snorted and rolled her eyes. "Just take a breath. Read a book. Go run in the woods. I'm sure she'll be home soon."
The words fell easily enough from my lips. I only wished I believed them.