Chapter 29

Confusion overtook Spencer when she woke the next morning, the sun still hanging low in the horizon. The walls around her were foreign, the smells were overwhelming, the temperature was uncomfortable. She wasn't home, and her body knew it.

She stretched the knots from her body, shaking off the sleep that had wound itself in her joints. Yet, as much as she wanted to remain in the soft and warm bed, she knew the task at hand had to be done as soon as possible. She wanted it to be done as soon as possible.

The longer Spencer spent away from LaPush and Forks, the more her mind ruminated on her past. Images of her time with the Cullens bombarded her brain, reminding her of a life lived and lost. It made her heart ache and yearn—something she thought she had moved on from. It made her think of forgiveness, of reconciliation, of regression. She felt her judgment was held hostage and everything she had strived for was going down the drain.

Without giving it much thought, she got up from the bed and got ready, packing everything she brought back up. She wasn't going to spend a second more in New York than she had to. Her goal was to get Carlisle back to Washington and then go home. That was her plan, and she would do nothing to stray from it.

Esme and Theo were already waiting when she came downstairs, talking in hushed tones until she was in their presence. Their conversation halted as she joined them, and they gifted her warm smiles.

"How'd you sleep?" Theo asked. "Haven't slept in centuries, but those mattresses are great, huh."

"Yeah, no, they're amazing. Definitely not a mattress I could afford," the girl commented, unsure as to why she had. "But, uh, we should get going. Got a long ride ahead of us."

"Of course," Esme smiled as she grabbed their bags. "You can eat your breakfast in the car, and just let us know if we need to make a stop."

"Sure thing."

"Let's do this, then."

The car ride went by faster than Spencer thought it would. Mostly because somewhere along the three-hour ride and the mindless conversation, she had drifted off to sleep. She couldn't recall when her eyes had closed, but she awoke with a startle when the car rolled to a stop a couple of miles away from the parking lot of the Panama Rocks Scenic Park, deep enough in the forest. Her neck was tight, and her mouth felt dry, but once she saw the green and the grey mingling in an almost endless void, she knew her trip back home was closer than when the day had started.

The park was still closed to the public, and they needed to keep their presence hidden from any onlookers. There wasn't a way to explain to people why three women were sneaking into the place, much less why Teo of them were glittering under the sun. Though they could have hidden better during the darkness of the night, Spencer didn't have the supernatural ability to see well in the night, and flashlights would definitely give them away.

"Okay, I have a vague idea where Carlisle might be," Theo said as she pulled a map of the area out. "If he wanted to be ironically poetic, he'd be in the caves in Devil's Den, but that's part of the more trafficked area, so I don't think he would. To be as far away from civilization as he could here, I think he'd settle somewhere along the center—up sixty-foot rock formations."

"Well, I don't think my boots are good for a hike like that," Spencer blurted. "It's going to take me days to check everywhere, and I'm not good at climbing."

"There is a way we could scavenge the area in maybe an hour or a bit more," Esme added. "Theo and I can run through, pinpoint his location by his scent, and then carry you there. That way, you won't have to overexert yourself, and we can get you home as soon as possible."

"And what am I supposed to do in the meantime?"

"You'd stay with the car," Theo said. "Be on the lookout for anyone that might come around. And if you have to, move the car away. We won't take that long, I hope."

"Great," the girl muttered as she slumped onto the driver's seat. "Guess I'll just wait here, then."

"You'll be safer this way, Spence," her friend offered. "The last thing you want is to be clinging onto me for dear life as we run and jump unnatural lengths. You need to save your strength for whatever is to come, okay?"

"Yeah, you're right," she smiled softly. "I'm being prissy for no reason."

"It's okay to be nervous, you know. You're literally going through a one-in-a-billion situation here, Spence. I honestly don't know how you're here, but you're still standing. You're the best of us all."

"I just can't stand by while so many people keep hurting," Spencer muttered. "Not anymore. There can't be any more hate in my heart. I don't like what it did to me."

"There could never be anything that could ever dampen your light, Spencer," Theo said. "You are one of a kind, and everyone you meet knows it. Those who say they don't are just lying."

"Thank you, Theo," she smiled as warmth spread through her cheeks. "Now, go. I'm not getting any younger here."

"Lock the doors. We'll be back as soon as we can."

The vampires disappeared from her sight in the blink of an eye, leaving her alone in the middle of the woods with nothing but the bags and the car to keep her company. She scrolled through the texts on her phone for a while, skipping through message after message of both Sam and Paul. They were begging her to come back home, apologizing for their outburst and their actions, pleading she at least give them a call back.

But she was angry. Not just at them, but at the entire situation. Spencer could understand their reason for what they did—her logical mind would not allow her not to see their side of things. They had been tasked with the extraordinary job of protecting the people of LaPush from vampires, stopping anything they deemed a threat to the reservation. They didn't have a rulebook or many directions on how to fulfill their duties, and they were doing what they thought was best with what little knowledge they had.

Yet, she couldn't understand why they would think they had any right to meddle in her life and sever ties with people she loved. It was one thing to think that she could be in danger because of the scent of a vampire, but it was another for them to destroy letters from her friend even when she didn't know the supernatural existed. In their minds, they were protecting her, but the truth was they were cutting her off from the world—from the one person that had made her feel seen in a sea of blue and grey. They had decided Spencer would become a nobody in Theo's life, leaving her wondering for the rest of her life what she had done wrong.

There weren't many people she had ever connected with in her life—not in a deep and meaningful way. Of course, she had grown up surrounded by people who had loved and cared for her, but she always felt like there was a role she had to fulfill. She had to be strong, she had to be calm, she had to be the smartest in the room, and she was each and every thing people expected because everyone did.

Well, Sam had always seen her as more than intelligent. He'd seen her as his little sister, the girl he had sworn silently to always protect. Even if somewhere along the way, his lines had blurred, and his protections had turned into rules and demands, he had always tried to keep her safe. He could have cared less about the accolades and the academics. Sam simply wanted her happy. At least, for some time, that was all he had cared about.

There had also been Paul, of course. He didn't care how smart she was or what had happened in her past. He had just wanted a friend. When he had felt the loneliest after the move to LaPush, she had appeared like an answer to a prayer, tripping in front of him with a stack of books from the library that she was taking home. After that fateful day, he had become her shadow while he found his footing in the reservation. And when he gained popularity amongst their peers, he took her under his wing and protected her from anyone that attempted to harm her. Paul had cared enough to see past the surface that everyone admired and had been interested to learn about the girl past the books and the absent dad.

Once Spencer had left for Greenfield and was alone again, she didn't think she'd find someone like him. Someone who wouldn't care about what she could do but who she was. And then she had found Theo—or Theo had found her. She had changed the trajectory of the girl's life, helping her down the path of academic excellence and confident living. After Theo, she believed there was nothing she couldn't do. As long as she invested her time wisely and stopped listening to what others thought, she would be capable of anything.

And, of course, there had been Carlisle. The man who had been able to transform the very fibers of her essence. The man who had not only seen her soul but also her heart. He had shown her all the things she hadn't known she desired; he made her believe in a life she thought she deserved. What happened at the end... well, the jury was still out on that.

Finally, after a long bout of darkness and pain, Eden had come along. He'd been distant at first, being short and cold with her. But the second the gears had changed, and he saw her truly, he had been a breath of fresh air she didn't know she needed. Eden was kind and patient, wise beyond his years and understanding. Somehow, he had begun to make her excited to meet someone new. She saw potential in him. She saw possible l...

As she debated getting on the phone and calling him, Theo's sudden apparition startled the phone out of her hands. "We've found him," she exclaimed. "We've finally found him."

Spencer hadn't noticed that she had let her mind wander for close to two hours. She had fallen down a thought spiral she would not have come out of had it not been for Theodora. The girl jumped out of the car, shaking away the shivers that started running through her veins. This was it. After almost eight months without him, she was about to face Carlisle once more—to save him and bring him home. "How do we do this?" she asked her friend, her voice trembling slightly under her nerves. "Do I just...?"

"Get on my back, Spence," Theo chuckled. "And grab on really tight."

Running wasn't an activity Spencer partook in very often. As much as she wanted to incorporate the training into her daily life, it was too time-consuming for her already packed schedule. Now, speeding through trees and rock formations while clinging to the back of a vampire at a hundred miles an hour was not what she envisioned for a light run. The cold air of the morning bit at her skin alongside the branches that tried to snag her. Theo did avoid getting her hurt, but just the feeling of leaves smacking against her face was enough to have the girl thinking she'd been wounded.

What had felt like hours to her, where she prayed silently that her strength was enough to keep herself on Theo, had only been a few minutes. The vampire came to a stop at a particularly odd boulder that stood at a little over sixty feet of height and over twenty feet of width from what she could tell. The rocks seemed to mold into each other, creating the illusion of various black holes forming into its sediment. Even in the light of day, it looked tenebrous. The last thing anyone would say of the area was inviting.

"He is not well," Esme said as she joined them, jumping out from one of the caves. "Wouldn't even respond to me. No matter what I said, he just stared at the wall. Spencer..."

"I know," the girl sighed defeatedly. "I'm the only one that he will answer to. I can... I can do it."

"I was going to say you should be careful," she replied. "We will be just a few feet away, but he's still stronger and faster than us. Keep your distance."

"Oh," Spencer muttered in surprise. "I will. Thank you, Esme."

"Of course," the woman smiled. "Just give a shout if you need us."

"Will do."

"Alright, then," Theo said. "Back on."

Theodora went a couple of yards back for a running start, kicking off the ground with a force Spencer had never witnessed. As they raised through the air, the girl's fingers dug into her friend's shirt, hiding her face in the crook of her neck to avoid looking down. They landed with a soft thud at the entrance of the cave, the heel of her boots echoing through the hollow space.

"Don't get too close, okay?" Theo worried as she handed Spencer a flashlight. "Yell if you need us. And if you can't, snap your fingers three times."

"I thought Carlisle had unnatural resistance," Spencer muttered, concern sinking into her veins. "Do you think he would really attack me?"

"He hasn't fed correctly in far too long," Esme sighed. "He has always been the strongest out of anyone I know, but paired with heartbreak... well, I just couldn't tell you what he's capable of."

Spencer trembled at the thought of what awaited her. A voice in her head told her to turn around and say she wouldn't help any longer. A voice warned her of the strength and unpredictability she could face. Yet, she couldn't listen—not when her heart told her to keep moving her feet, one in front of the other. With shaky hands, she pointed the flashlight ahead of her, ignoring the smell of humidity and the cold eeriness that threatened to overtake her.

The girl knew Carlisle had not fed in some time. She also knew what vampires could look like after a prolonged time without blood. But nothing could prepare her from coming face to face with the shell of who her first love used to be.

Sitting against the cave's walls, Carlisle stared into nothingness. His eyes were as black as coal, his cheekbones had sunken, and the bags under his eyes battled to take over the rest of his face. Long gone was the beautiful marble white of his skin, replaced instead with a putrid gray color. His hair had lost all life, flopping against his dampened skin in matted clumps. The man didn't even care a drip had settled just above him, falling tauntingly on his head, over and over and over again.

Had Spencer not known if he was standing before her that he was alive, she would have been certain she was staring at a terrifying replica of Carlisle. He simply sat, unmoving, unblinking, unresponsive.

Spencer tried to speak, but the words seemed to get stuck in her mouth, tasting of bile and rancidness. They scratched the walls of her throat as though he had willed her not to mutter a single sound. Carlisle didn't want to hear it. Carlisle couldn't hear it.

But if one thing was clear to the girl, it was that he had to leave the cave. He needed to.

"C-Carlisle?" she managed to croak. His head snapped toward the sound of her voice, and she could have sworn that his neck had cracked like a dry hinge. His dark eyes bore into hers, analyzing the image in front of him. "It's me, Carlisle. It's Spencer. I've come to take you home. "

She wasn't expecting a triumphant reunion. With all their unresolved feelings, she had prepared herself for a stern talk and flight back home. Instead, Carlisle had jumped from the place he seemed permanently planted in and sped toward her. His hand circled her throat as he pressed her against the cavern's wall. The rock scratched at her skin through her shirt, and she had to stand on her tiptoes to keep him from being her only support.

"Is this where my delusions have driven me? You're not real!" he laughed manically. "Spencer would never come to take me home. ME! After what I did to her, she would be more than happy to let me rot. I will say, brain, you were far more creative the last time."

This wasn't him. It couldn't be. The crazed look in his eyes told her just how much he'd been suffering on his own, punishing himself for a situation he had not known how to handle. "Carlisle, it's really me," she muttered, straining against his hand. "Feel my heartbeat. I'm right here. I want to get you home."

"I've felt and heard your heartbeat a million times. Do you really think you could fool me? ME?! AGAIN?! No. YOU CAN'T FOOL ME!" he continued. His eyes stared at her but could have been looking through her. Yet, something told her as strong as he wanted to appear, had he been human, tears would be streaming down his face. He wasn't well. He wasn't Carlisle. "Months and months of the same apparition. This is my way of the cross. I am cursed to live with the memory of the one person I regret ever breaking—the only person who will ever have my heart. You come, and you go; you hurt, and you save; you laugh, and you cry. And I can take it. I can take it all. But not this. Don't talk about home. There is no home for me. For my home is only where I burnt my own heart to the ground. I torched the thread that held me together to my one reason for being. If God has ever forsaken me, it has been at this moment. If God had ever wanted to punish the abomination that I am, it is now. Don't talk to me about home."

Carlisle's ramblings were nonsensical, but the threat around Spencer's throat was very real. Without meaning to, the man cemented his every word by closing his hand just a little bit closer and closer. She tried to scratch at his arm, meeting the same hard skin she knew—unbreakable. "Car-li-sle," she croaked. "Stop. It's me."

"STOP! SHE'S NOT HERE!" His anger rained upon her as he slammed a fist next to her, making shards of the cave scatter around them. "You're not real. YOU'RE NOT REAL!"

He muttered the phrase over and over like a mantra as though he was trying to keep himself sane. But he had lost his sanity months before. He'd grown restless and delusional quickly, berating himself for everything he had and had not done. Carlisle blamed himself for the brokenness of his family, but most of all, he promised himself eternal damnation for letting go of Spencer in the most horrid way he could muster. He had not physically killed her, but he had done the second worst thing.

A jagged piece of quartz grabbed Spencer's attention then. It had landed perfectly at arm's reach. She could feel her vision growing spotty from the lack of oxygen, but she couldn't call the girls just yet—not until Carlisle had snapped back into reality.

She struggled against his grip slightly, reaching for the crystal, feeling its edge cut slightly into her palm. "If you don't think I'm real, then you won't care if I'm hurt," she whispered. Carlisle watched with a look of concern as she raised the quartz to her wrist. "Come back, Carlisle. Come home."

Without thinking twice, Spencer ran the sharpest point of the quartz down her arm, flinching as blood pooled on her skin. Putting all trust in the vampires, the girl let the crystal fall to the ground and snapped her fingers three times. She mustered all the love and care she could in a simple gaze and stared into Carlisle's black eyes as she raised her bloody hand onto his cheek and smiled.

Then, it all went black.