Give Into Us Chapter 18

It hadn’t taken long for Heidi to find where her old friend was hiding. She knew her former best friends habits nearly as well as she knew her own. And unfortunately for Victoria, vampires had difficulty breaking old habits; especially when they weren’t thinking clearly like after losing a mate. Victoria may have been very smart but with the death of her mate, her mind was definitely declining. She was making decisions she normally wouldn’t have made and while that did help to throw Heidi off her trail for all of two seconds, it wasn’t enough to really fool Heidi.

It also worked against Victoria that the redhead didn’t seem very concerned with hiding her tracks very well. Yes, the redhead was doing very well at hiding herself from the pixie’s visions but Heidi knew the only other avoidance she was doing was avoiding the Volturi’s radar and she just barely managing to do that. In fact, Heidi was sure if the reports kept coming in for another week or so and Jane and Heidi weren’t already there, the queens would have likely sent someone to deal with Victoria.

Heidi had already killed a few stray newborns that had wondered too far from the main group to be noticed. Heidi was thanking her luck that Victoria kept all her newborns together in a giant and very flammable warehouse. She saw Victoria give instructions to what seemed like a boy just barely out of his newborn phase before she left; at least now Heidi knew how Victoria was avoiding Alice’s power. Unfortunately for the newborns now in the warehouse, all Heidi had to do was fully unleash her power on all of them, have them stay in the warehouse no matter what happened and burn it down.

While it was an easy solution and easily done, she knew the real fight was going to be with Victoria and her gift. Heidi had to make sure that her entire intentions while being near and around Victoria remained to only talk with the redhead and nothing else. If any part of her wanted anything outside of just talking, Heidi knew she wouldn’t win in a fight with the redhead; well, she could, but it would be a lot more work than Heidi wanted to do when she was already going to take so long and not see her mate when she crossed back over the border.

Once she was sure Victoria was far enough away to not catch on to what she was going to do in the warehouse, Heidi moved.

Within the hour, Heidi had the warehouse burning and could hear the screams from the burning newborns inside. She was very thankful Jane hadn’t been there; the blonde would have laughed at how long it took Heidi to convince Reilley to believe her and not try to run off. As it were, Heidi had found out Victoria had been planning on releasing the newborns into Forks while she went after Bella. To be willing to do something so reckless, especially from someone who’s gift manifested from their need to avoid any and all things reckless, meant Victoria was a lot farther gone that Heidi had originally believed.

The warehouse inferno had quickly grew out of control, vampire venom practically making the fire nearly explosive, but that was for the humans to figure out, Heidi needed to find Victoria before the redhead found out what happened to her army. Heidi needed to rely on her gift more than she had intended for her former best friend. Thankfully for Heidi, Victoria had never figured out how to repel Heidi’s gift. Once Heidi’s gift latched onto Victoria, the redhead would stand no chance.

Heidi just needed to get as close as possible to try and use her gift before Victoria or her gift found out Heidi was there.

Heidi followed Victoria’s trail to outside of Seattle, thankfully, and in the middle of the forest. If it wasn’t for the fact Heidi already knew the redhead didn’t have anymore newborns to fight with her, she would have thought the redhead had lured her into a trap. Perhaps the redhead was luring Heidi out to the middle of the forest because that was where her gift said she stood the strongest chance of wining?

“I’m surprised those queens let their littler fisherman leave the castle.” Victoria said as she leaned against a tree, seemingly completely nonplussed about being followed.

Heidi strolled out of her hiding spot that had been downwind, channeling her inner Jane to try and intimidate her former friend. While Heidi really didn’t want to fight Victoria, she would. She will kill the redhead since she was an active threat against her mate. She could never let that stand.

“It’s been a long-time friend.” Heidi said with a giant smile, pretending like having to kill her old best friend was an everyday occurrence and didn’t in fact make her sad.

“I suppose you were sent by your masters to kill me?” Victoria said, not allowing herself to get riled up. She knew this was always a possibility, it was just unfortunate enough that it was her friend that was sent after her and so quickly at that too. She had thought for sure she would have at least another months before the Volturi mobilized.

“I was already in the area.” Heidi said as she took painfully slow steps towards the unstable vampire. The last thing Heidi wanted Victoria to do was to run. Heidi was faster than the redhead in a straight run, but through a forest and with Victoria’s gift? Heidi doubted very much she would be able to catch the woman. What was it the human cops always said in situations with a bad guy? Keep them talking?

“So, it’s just a coincidence you happen to be here while I’m trying to avenge my mate?” Victoria said with a sneer.

Heidi was at a loss of what to say. Should she pretend to not know her mate had died? Truthfully, the Volturi had been aware of James and the perverted hunts he would force humans to do before killing them. The queens were just waiting for James to pick the wrong person or stray too close to civilization with his game before the intervened. It also helped that Heidi vouched Victoria would never let James get out of control. Heidi had been growing nervous about how much longer she would be able to buy her friend time to reign in her mate. Did Victoria even want to?

“I happened to be here with Jane.” Heidi decided to go with the half-truth, better to stick as close to the truth as possible. “We were looking into the Cullen’s and what they had left behind. That’s when you showed up.” Heidi said with a real frown. If it had been the truth, Heidi would have been upset about finding out her former coven mate’s mate was killed and now said coven mate was on the warpath to kill a human. “The human you’re after is the same human the Cullen’s left behind and are in trouble for leaving. But also, the human is the Police Chief’s daughter, she would be too easily noticed if she went missing.” Heidi carefully said with as much sympathetic tones as possible. She wanted Victoria to think Heidi was with her on killing Bella, which of course she one hundred percent wasn’t. The longer Victoria thought Heidi was on her side or trying to be, the closer Heidi could get and the stronger and faster her gift would work to incapacitate Victoria and kill her.

Victoria’s jaw clenched at the mention of the Witch Twin she most disliked. It was Jane that had helped decimate her former coven, her former family. As much as Victoria wanted to run, her gift was telling her it wouldn’t make a difference. Heidi wasn’t telling her the whole truth, of that she was certain. But her gift, the very thing that always did it’s best to keep her alive, was telling her it was over. No matter which scenario she went through in her head, eventually, her gift says it was over for her. As much as Victoria wanted her revenge, with the Witch Twin here, Victoria knew she wouldn’t get it. But perhaps she could get it vicariously. The Cullen’s had broken the law after-all and if there was ever a vampire that could kill a human in the spotlight, it would be the Volturi.

“What are you going to do with the human?” Victoria said, just barely holding back a growl from just talking about it.

This answer was easy, all she had to do was go with what the Volturi were known for and give Victoria what she wanted. The redhead never had to know she wasn’t going to follow through on anything.

“She will die.” Heidi said, keeping her emotions in check by thinking that yes, Bella would die, but only because she needed to in order to become a vampire. “As soon as Lady Athenodora has a plan that would make sure the Sherriff won’t find any traces of us, she will be killed.” Also true, as soon as they were sure they could change Bella and not have anyone go looking for her, she would be changed.

Victoria smirked, she may not be able to kill the girl herself but with Heidi and the Witch Twin sent after her, Victoria knew she would at least die. And if the human spoke or screamed at the Witch Twin, she would be tortured as well. What more could she ask for?

She had already felt Heidi’s gift working on her. All Heidi needed was a visual of her target. While Victoria didn’t realize when it first started, as soon as she did, she stopped running. Heidi was using her thrall to pull Victoria in and she would only be able to resist for maybe another hour or two if Heidi didn’t get much closer to her. As soon as Heidi saw her, Victoria had lost. At least this way, Victoria could go out with dignity instead of fruitlessly trying to get away.

“Make it fast then Heidi.” Victoria said as she pushed off against the tree to stand at her full height, she had nothing to fear after all. “I haven’t seen James in a very long time and I’m quite eager to see him.”

Heidi had to hide her shock at how well Victoria was taking her impending death. She had seriously thought Victoria was going to put up such a big fight that Heidi may have ended up calling Jane for backup. Perhaps Victoria was more tired than she let on about living without her soulmate. Heidi hoped she never found out for herself. Whatever the reason for Victoria not fighting, Heidi would consider it a last act of friendship between the two.

Victoria turned her back towards her friend and looked towards the sky. She wasn’t afraid to die. Why be afraid when the only thing that awaited her on the other side was her soulmate? No, Victoria was quite happy to be joining him and only a little disappointed she couldn’t kill the human herself. But she would pick seeing James over killing the human any day.

Heidi didn’t waste any time in ripping Victoria’s head off her shoulders. She was afraid Victoria would wake up from whatever delusion she was in and realize that she really didn’t want to die; at least not before killing her mate. She had read too many books and seen too many movies where the hero didn’t move when they should have and the villain got a last second upper hand in the situation.

With Victoria in flames and Heidi not even having a single tear in her clothes from the fight that never happened, she was well and truly ready to go find Jane and gloat about her difficult win that she had to pull all the stops on to make sure Victoria and every newborn was killed. Hopefully Sulpicia wouldn’t ruin her fun and tell Jane what had really happened; Heidi wanted to look cooler than usual towards Bella.

Before Heidi could take off, her phone rang. Normally she would have ignored it in favor of getting to where she was going faster but the ringtone was Janes and with the little spat the two just had, Heidi knew Jane would have only called if it was really important.

“I was right.”

It was all Jane said before the line went dead. Later, Heidi would congratulate herself on being able to put her phone in her pocket without breaking at. She took off immediately towards where her soul was telling her, her mate was. She didn’t even waste a second thought about the fire she left burning in the woods, it would figure itself out eventually. Getting to her mate was more important. She knew Bella wasn’t in a life-threatening situation since her own bond would have told her that; she wouldn’t have needed Jane to call her for that. But that didn’t mean her mate wasn’t hurt or currently in danger. And the fast that Jane called her instead of taking care of it herself didn’t bode well either.

She needed to get to Bella fast. Whoever was hurting her mate better get ready for a world of pain by the time she got there.