The morning of the departure was gray and suffocatingly damp. The construction crew was already hammering away at the frame of the Swan house, the sound of nails being driven into wood echoing like gunfire across the yard.
Charlie stood by the truck, his face a mask of forced calm. He hugged Bella tight, a long, lingering embrace that told the whole story of a father who knew he was being kept in the dark but was choosing to trust his children anyway. He gripped Mame's shoulder, a firm, grounding squeeze.
"You watch out for your sister," Charlie said, his voice thick. "And Mame... don't go looking for trouble. It usually finds you anyway."
"I'll keep her safe, Dad," Mame said, his expression impassive. "Just keep the police on the perimeter. Don't let anyone into the house."
As the truck pulled away, Mame didn't look back at the house. Instead, he pulled into a secluded stretch of logging road, two miles away from the main highway.
A silver Volvo was idling in the brush. Edward Cullen stepped out, his expression grim.
"The plan is set," Edward said, his eyes darting toward the woods. "Alice has confirmed that James is tracking our scent. He's closing in, but he's hesitant. He knows we're capable of grouping up."
Mame stepped out of the truck, pulling his leather jacket off. It was the same one he'd worn during the fight in the clearing—soaked in the metallic, dried-blood scent of his own torn hands. He tossed it to Edward.
"Here," Mame said. "This smells like the fight. It smells like blood, bleach, and hate. If you're going to act as the primary decoy, make sure he smells this."
Edward caught the jacket, his nose wrinkling at the potency of the scent. It was overwhelming—raw, human, and aggressive.
"We have Bella's clothes as well," Edward said, glancing at the pile in the backseat of the Volvo. "We're going to scatter across the state. Emmett will take the northern route, Jasper the coast, and I will take the mountain pass toward the border. We will cross each other's paths repeatedly to create a web of scents so complex even James will struggle to isolate a single trail."
"Good," Mame said, his eyes hard. "Make it look like you're spiraling. Make it look like you're panicked, trying to find a way to get her out of the state. If you make it look too clean, he'll know it's a setup."
"And what of you?" Edward asked. "You're heading straight to the airport in Seattle, then a direct flight to Phoenix. You'll have no protection. No vampires to guard you."
"That's the point," Mame replied, climbing back into the driver's seat of the truck to meet Bella, who was waiting at the rendezvous point. "He won't be looking for me on a commercial airliner. He'll be looking for the scent of the blood-stained jacket in the mountains. He'll be hunting you, Edward. And while he's busy chasing ghosts in the wilderness, I'll be in Phoenix, preparing the cage."
Edward looked at Mame, his golden eyes searching for any sign of hesitation. He found none.
"If he finds you," Edward said quietly, "you will die."
"If he finds me," Mame countered, starting the engine, "he's going to realize why I told you to stop playing monks. He's going to wish he'd stayed in the woods."
Mame shifted into gear. As he drove away, he watched in his rearview mirror as Edward threw Mame's jacket on and vanished into the dense undergrowth, sprinting with terrifying speed in the opposite direction of the airport.
The web was spun. Mame had successfully weaponized the Cullens' desire to "protect" into a massive, multi-directional smokescreen. James was now chasing a ghost, and the "Successor of Helsing" was headed to Arizona to lay the final, lethal trap.
Stepping out of Phoenix Sky Harbor was like walking into an oven. The air didn't just feel hot; it felt aggressive, dry, and suffocating. Mame adjusted his collar, squinting against the relentless, blinding glare of the Arizona sun.
"This," Mame muttered, his voice flat, "is a death sentence. How does anything survive out here? I'll take the rain, the mud, and the freezing cold of Forks over this any day. At least in Washington, you don't feel like you're being slow-roasted by the sky."
Bella laughed, the sound bright and unburdened by the paranoia that had defined their lives for the last week. She turned to face him, the sun catching the stray hairs of her wind-blown mess. "Oh, come on, Mame. It's sun. It's nice. It's vitamin D. You're just a grumpy bat because you spent too long in the shadows."
Mame gave her a look of pure, unadulterated skepticism, but he didn't argue. He checked his periphery—habit, even here. Everything was normal. People were rushing to shuttles, cabs were honking, and the heat was vibrating off the asphalt.
"Let's get this over with," Mame said.
They found Renée waiting near the arrivals curb. She was exactly as Bella had described: vibrant, slightly chaotic, and possessing a smile that seemed to light up the crowded sidewalk.
As they approached, Mame felt a strange, unfamiliar flutter in his chest. It wasn't the adrenaline of a fight or the focus of a hunt; it was... awkwardness. Being the "Successor of Helsing," the boy who could face down a vampire, was easy. Being a teenager meeting his new mom? That was uncharted territory.
He stiffened, his shoulders squaring up as if he were preparing for a drill.
Bella noticed. She glanced at him, her eyes widening, and then a slow, smug smile curled her lips. She practically glowed with the delight of seeing the usually stoic and terrifying Mame Swan look like a nervous kid on his first day of school.
Revenge, Mame thought, narrowing his eyes at her. I am currently recording this data. You will pay for that smirk, Bella. I don't know how, and I don't know when, but you will pay.
He took a breath, smoothed his hair, and walked toward the woman. Renée's eyes widened as she looked at him, then down at Bella.
"Mom," Bella said, rushing forward and pulling her mother into a hug.
Mame stopped a few feet away, feeling completely out of place. He cleared his throat, his posture stiff, his voice coming out a little more formal than he intended.
"Hello, ma'am," Mame said, inclining his head. "I am Mame Swan. Your husband... he adopted me back in Forks."
Renée blinked, her bright eyes flickering over him, taking in the bandages on his hands hidden beneath his jacket, his rigid posture, and his intense, searching gaze. She seemed to pause, then she looked at Bella, who was trying desperately to hide her laughing fit behind her hand.
Renée's expression softened. The curiosity in her eyes turned into a warm, genuine kindness. She stepped forward, ignoring his attempt at a formal hand-off, and pulled Mame into a hug that smelled like vanilla and desert air.
"Oh, stop with the 'ma'am,' Mame," she said, pulling back and tapping his cheek. "You're a Swan now, aren't you? That makes you my boy. You can call me Mom—well, I am your mom, so to speak!"
She looked him up and down, a playful glint in her eyes. "My goodness, you're a serious one, aren't you? Charlie mentioned you were a 'tactical thinker,' but I didn't realize that meant you stood like you were guarding a vault. Relax, kiddo. The only thing you have to defend in this house is the remote control."
Mame let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding, his shoulders dropping a fraction of an inch. "I... yes. Thank you, Mom."
"Much better," Renée beamed, turning toward her car. "Now, come on. It's too hot to stand out here and have a staring contest with the sun. Let's get you home."
As she led the way to the sedan, Bella leaned close to Mame, her voice a mocking whisper. "A 'vault,' huh? Nice work, soldier."
Mame gave her a look that promised a very long, very complicated prank in the near future. "Enjoy the smugness, Bella. It's going to be a very long vacation."
Renée's home was a bright, airy bungalow that looked like it had been decorated by a committee of people who all exclusively shopped at artisan craft fairs. It was undeniably welcoming, but to Mame's eyes, it was a tactical nightmare. Too many ground-level windows, a sliding glass door with a flimsy latch, and a backyard that was entirely overlooked by the neighbors' fences.
As Renée unlocked the front door and ushered them into the living room, she sighed with relief, dropping her keys into a ceramic bowl.
"You two must be exhausted," Renée said, gesturing to the plush, beige couches. "The flight, the stress, the heat... it's a lot. Why don't you both just crash today? Take a nap, drink some water, and just breathe. Bella, you can show Mame around the town tomorrow when it's not quite so peak-heat."
Mame stood in the center of the living room, his hands stuffed into his pockets, his eyes already tracing the sightlines from the front door to the back exit. He wasn't thinking about rest; he was thinking about thermal visibility.
"Tomorrow?" Mame asked, his voice completely level and devoid of irony. He looked at the bright, unfiltered sunlight pouring through the floor-to-ceiling windows. "Will it be less sunny tomorrow?"
The silence that followed was broken by a sudden, sharp bark of laughter from Bella. Renée followed a second later, clutching her stomach as she leaned against the counter, shaking her head.
"Oh, Mame!" Renée wheezed, wiping a tear from her eye. "This is Arizona! The sun is practically part of the lease agreement. It's never 'less sunny' here. You're going to have to make friends with the Vitamin D, kiddo."
Bella was practically doubled over, gasping for air. "You—you really are like a vampire, Mame. You're the only person I know who hates the sun on vacation."
Mame didn't crack a smile. He maintained his perfectly blank, tactical expression, though he internally noted the UV index levels. If he was going to fight James in the middle of a suburb, he needed to know if the heat would interfere with his traps or if the glare would give the tracker an advantage.
"I just prefer overcast conditions for visibility," Mame offered, finally shrugging. "High contrast makes it harder to spot threats."
Renée stopped laughing, looking at him with a mix of amusement and genuine concern. "Threats? Honey, the only thing you need to worry about in Phoenix is the price of air conditioning. Go, get settled in the guest room. I'll make some lunch."
As Renée bustled off to the kitchen, humming a tune, Bella leaned into Mame's space. She was still grinning, though her eyes were soft.
"You're going to have to loosen up, you know," she whispered. "Mom's nice. The sun won't bite you. And there are no vampires here, Mame. Just us."
Mame looked at her, his expression tightening just a fraction. He didn't want to break her illusion, but he knew better. He knew exactly where the tracker was, and he knew that James didn't care about the weather forecast.
"Go take that nap, Bella," Mame said, turning to walk toward the guest room. "I'll start scouting the perimeter of the backyard. Someone has to make sure we don't get any unexpected visitors."
Bella rolled her eyes, but she didn't stop him. She knew by now that Mame didn't do "normal." He did "survive."
Mame shut the door to his room, pulling the blinds shut. He opened his system interface, the blue light casting long, sharp shadows across the floral wallpaper.
The rain in Washington wasn't just weather; today, it felt like a personal insult.
Rosalie Hale sprinted through the dense, dripping undergrowth of the Olympic Peninsula, her feet barely touching the mud. She hated this. She hated the damp, she hated the way the wet pine needles clung to her designer clothes, and, most of all, she hated that she was currently running an errand for a human teenager.
"Stop whining, Rose," Emmett rumbled, his voice vibrating with amusement despite the seriousness of their task. He kept pace beside her, his massive frame unfazed by the treacherous terrain.
"I am not whining," Rosalie hissed, her voice sharp enough to cut glass. She clutched a sealed plastic bag containing a collection of Bella's clothes and a swatch of fabric from Mame's blood-soaked jacket. "I am pointing out the utter absurdity of this situation. We are vampires. Apex predators. And here we are, playing hide-and-seek to protect a human girl who has a brother with a God complex."
"Hey, it's the plan," Emmett countered, though his expression tightened. "Carlisle said we split up. We lay the trail, we confuse the senses, we make the tracker look in five directions at once."
"We are doing exactly what Mame Swan told us to do," Rosalie spat, her golden eyes flashing with resentment. "Did you see his face back in the office? He looked at us like we were employees. 'Do this, do that, keep out of my way.' I have been alive for nearly a century, and I have never been so insulted."
They reached a pre-planned diversion point—a dense thicket near a rushing river. Rosalie opened the bag. She took a discarded sweater of Bella's and a piece of Mame's torn, blood-stained cuff and tied them firmly to a low-hanging branch. The scent was incredibly potent—the sweet, floral notes of Bella mixed with the harsh, metallic sting of Mame's unique, adrenaline-heavy blood.
It was a scent profile that would drive any tracker absolutely insane with confusion.
"There," she said, wiping her hands on her jeans as if trying to scrub away the stench. "That should confuse the beast. If James follows this, he'll spend the next six hours tracking a scent that leads straight into the middle of the river."
"Edward is doing the same on the mountain pass," Emmett added, looking toward the north. "Alice is clearing Jasper's path. We're creating a labyrinth, Rose. Mame might be arrogant, but the kid knows how to manipulate a hunt."
"He's a narcissist," Rosalie retorted, leaping over a fallen log with fluid grace. "He thinks he's a master strategist just because he plays with chemical weapons and knows things about us he has no right to know. He's going to get himself killed, and when he does, we're the ones who will have to deal with the fallout. Carlisle is bending over backward to accommodate him. Why?"
Emmett went silent, his golden eyes focused on the dark, impenetrable tree line ahead. "Because he's the only one of us who isn't afraid to get his hands dirty, Rose. Look at the Cullens. We're so afraid of losing our 'humanity' that we've become soft. Mame isn't. He's a weapon. And weapons are dangerous, sure... but they're also useful."
Rosalie didn't answer. She just increased her speed, putting miles of forest between herself and the scent of Mame Swan. She wanted to be as far away as possible when the inevitable happened. She wanted to be in Phoenix, safely tucked away, watching the human world from behind a glass wall, far from the boy who had turned her entire world upside down.
But as she ran, she couldn't shake the feeling that Mame was right about one thing: the peace they had known for a century was dead.
She turned sharply to the east, heading toward the coast to lay the final piece of the scent trap. She was playing her part, running the errands, spreading the lies—but her heart wasn't in it. She was just waiting for the day when she wouldn't have to listen to a human tell her how to survive.