(Victoria)
Oregon never slept.
It only breathed.
Dark forests stretched endlessly beneath the overcast sky, heavy with mist and rot and the slow, patient pulse of life. I moved through it without direction, without destination, slipping from shadow to shadow like a thought half-formed and quickly discarded.
I had been like this for weeks.
Whenever I tried to decide anything, turn east, turn north, hunt here, wait there, that familiar prickle crawled up my spine. Danger. Not immediate, not visible, but inevitable. The sensation tightened around every deliberate choice until I learned to stop making them altogether.
So I let instinct take over.
I ran when my feet urged me to run. I hid when the air grew wrong. I fed when hunger pressed too sharply, careful, always careful, never leaving bodies behind, never drawing attention. Humans were liabilities. Witnesses. Trails.
And trails led to the Volturi.
That alone was enough to keep me disciplined.
My gift had saved me more times than I could count, whispering warnings before teeth closed on my throat or hands reached for my hair, but it wasn't perfect. It never would be. Not against them. If Aro decided I was worth the trouble, Demetri would find me. He always found who they wanted to find, he was even better than James. Distance, concealment, caution, it wouldn't matter. Even my gift wouldn't protect me.
I was not foolish enough to test that certainty.
Still… even with all my care, the fear never left.
Because there was something else now.
Something worse.
Every time my thoughts drifted too close to Forks, every time I remembered the white flash of fur, the way the forest itself had seemed to recoil, that same warning shrieked inside me, louder than anything before.
The wolf.
Not a wolf.
A monster.
The memory made me slow despite myself, my movements tightening, coiling inward. I hated that reaction. Hated the way my body remembered fear before my mind caught up.
For the first time since James had died, I considered stopping.
Not hiding.
Not retreating.
Just stopping.
The thought of abandoning revenge settled in my chest like ash, heavy and bitter. Was it worth it? The Cullens were already dangerous. Add that thing to the equation, and the scales tipped sharply toward suicide.
My instincts screamed every time I imagined crossing that boundary again.
I could survive.
I could disappear.
For centuries, if I wanted.
Then I remembered James.
His grin. His confidence. The thrill he took in the chase. The way his attention sharpened when prey thought it was safe.
The image of him torn apart, burned, destroyed, erased, rekindled something hot and vicious inside me.
No.
I would not let them walk away untouched.
Not the Cullens.
Not the wolf.
Not the girl.
Especially not the girl.
The fragile human at the center of it all. The one they protected so fiercely. The reason James had stayed when instinct should've told him to run.
The reason everything had started.
My hands curled into fists as I moved again, faster now, anger bleeding into my steps. Fury drowned fear, if only briefly.
But rage didn't make me stupid.
I couldn't fight them alone.
Not all of them.
I needed protection. Strength. A shield between me and the things that hunted hunters.
An ally.
A newborn, maybe. Someone strong. A gamble.
I slowed again.
No.
Choosing was dangerous.
Every time I chose, my instincts twisted sharp and wrong. My gift recoiled, warning me away from certainty.
I exhaled slowly, letting the tension drain from my shoulders.
I wouldn't choose, I couldn't, so I would let fate decide.
Chance had always favored me before.
I slipped deeper into the trees, vanishing between one heartbeat and the next, letting instinct guide my steps once more.
Somewhere out there, the answer was already waiting.
I just had to stumble into it.
…
(Mike)
By the time the sun dipped low enough to turn the light in my room orange, I was sprawled across my bed, staring at the door like it might magically produce Leah if I looked hard enough.
I'd spent the entire day messing around with my new powers, pushing limits, backing off, pushing again. My head still buzzed with it; wind, clouds, lightning, and spirits. It all felt unreal in that quiet, humming way, like the world had quietly admitted it was bigger than I thought and dared me to do something about it.
I was waiting for Leah.
And, yeah… my parents too, I guessed. Minor detail.
When the front door finally opened and familiar voices filtered through the house, I rolled onto my side, grinning. Dinner happened in that warm, slightly chaotic way it always did when Leah was around, my mom hovering a little too enthusiastically, my dad trying to act normal while very clearly failing at it.
Leah handled it like a pro.
She always did.
Afterward, we escaped upstairs without even needing to say anything. My room, our room now, really. Half the month here, half the month at her parents' place. Same bed. Same rhythm. Same quiet understanding that wherever we slept, it was ours.
Leah kicked off her shoes and flopped onto the bed, stretching like she'd finally let the day go.
I didn't even bother easing into it.
"Okay," I said, sitting cross-legged across from her, barely containing myself. "You are not going to believe what I figured out today."
She smiled instantly. That fond, indulgent smile she got when she knew I was about to ramble. "Try me."
And I did.
Spirit travel. Leaving my body. Floating. Phasing through walls. Talking to animals, asking them, not bossing them around. Wind. Clouds. Lightning. The almost-burning-down-the-forest part, which I maybe downplayed just a little.
Her eyes widened more with every sentence.
"Mike," she said slowly, "you summoned lightning."
"Accidentally," I corrected. "Very important distinction."
She laughed, shaking her head, then leaned forward, bracing her hands on the mattress. "That's… insane. That's incredible."
"I know, right?" I said, grinning like an idiot. "And the best part is, I think I could teach you. I mean, if I can do it, you definitely…"
"No."
The word was immediate. Firm. Not angry, not hesitant. Just… final.
I blinked. "No?"
She sat back, expression thoughtful now, not defensive. "No."
I frowned, trying to reconcile that with everything else about her. "Why not? I mean, you phase, you're strong as hell, you've got control, this isn't that different."
She exhaled slowly, choosing her words. "I don't really care much for rules," she admitted. "You know that. Never really have."
I nodded. That part tracked.
"But I'm still Quileute," she continued. "And some rules exist for a reason."
That made me pause.
She met my eyes steadily. "Taha Aki forbade spirit walking because it was dangerous. Because people died. Souls wandered too far and couldn't come back. Bodies were left empty. Vulnerable."
I opened my mouth, then closed it again.
She wasn't wrong.
"If it were forbidden for selfish reasons," she went on, "or because someone wanted control, I wouldn't hesitate to ignore it. But this?" She shook her head. "This was done to protect people. To maintain balance."
She looked down at her hands, then back up at me, softer now. "So I'll respect it. At least for now."
I studied her for a long moment.
Then I smiled.
"…Yeah," I said quietly. "That sounds like you."
She relaxed, tension easing from her shoulders. "You're not mad?"
"No," I said honestly. "If anything, I'm relieved one of us knows when not to poke the universe with a stick."
She snorted and leaned into me, resting her head against my shoulder. I wrapped an arm around her without thinking, the pull between us settling into something warm and steady.
"I'll still listen to your stories," she added lightly. "Just… I don't need to do everything you do."
I pressed a kiss into her hair, breathing her in.
"That's fair," I said. "I think the world's already got enough problems with just me experimenting."
She laughed softly, and for a while, that was enough.
…