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The dimness of the abandoned factory enveloped everything. The air was thick with the rancid smell of rusted metal and old dust, and every sound, no matter how small, was amplified in that empty space. Among corroded beams and forgotten machinery, Victoria's sharp screams rose and bounced off the walls, creating an almost ghostly echo.
Nate stood over her, his foot firmly pressing against the redhead's lower back. The force he exerted was not just physical; there was an icy authority in his stance, as if the entire factory bent beneath his will. His eyes, hard as steel, didn't blink.
"Who was it?" he asked, his voice so cold and cutting it seemed to scrape the air. There were no shouts, no apparent urgency; just a frigid tone carrying the promise of something far worse than death.
Victoria growled, trying to push herself off the ground with her hands to free herself, but Nate increased the pressure effortlessly. The dry crack of her spine echoed, and tiny cracks began appearing on her skin, spreading like thin black lines over perfect marble.
She screamed, kicking the concrete with impotent rage. The sound of her feet pounding the dry floor mixed with the echo of her ragged breathing.
"I'm not going to ask again," Nate said without raising his voice, but with a weight that pierced any attempt at resistance.
"Who was what?!" Victoria retorted through screams, her voice distorted by pain and confusion.
Nate's face darkened. His patience, fragile as glass, shattered instantly. He bent down sharply, his movements so fast they were barely noticed, and grabbed Victoria's right arm. The sound that followed was a dry tear, a snap that vanished into a deafening scream. The severed limb hit the floor with a hollow thud, and from the wound remained only a broken surface, like shattered stone.
"Who did you send to attack my grandmother?! She had nothing to do with this!" he roared, his voice filling the entire factory like thunder trapped between steel walls.
Victoria shrank back, gasping, her body trembling from the loss. There was no blood staining the floor, but the void in her shoulder was more brutal than any mortal wound. The pain showed in every involuntary spasm, while her nails scratched aimlessly at the dusty floor.
Nate breathed heavily—not from exhaustion, but from the effort to contain himself. He could feel his rage overflowing like an uncontrollable river, pushing against the walls of his self-control. If he gave in, he would end her before getting the truth. And he wasn't going to give her that easy escape.
He waited. Victoria's screams gradually faded, reducing to uneven gasps, and the silence that remained was filled with the faint creak of a beam above, as if the building itself was shrinking under the tension.
"Tell me his name," he finally said, slow and grave, every word loaded with calculated venom, "and I hope, for your sake, it wasn't one of the neophytes I've already killed... or you'll get what was meant for him."
Between her kicking and Nate's foot pressing down on her back, Victoria barely managed to choke out: "I don't know what you're talking about!"
Nate's face hardened. In a movement so fast that human eyes couldn't follow, he spun around and, with a sharp tug, tore off one of her legs. The sound of marble fracturing echoed through the place, followed by the limb hitting the concrete floor.
Victoria let out a heart-wrenching scream, arching her body, but Nate gave her no room to react. He crouched, grabbed her hair firmly, and forced her to look at him. His eyes, red and cold, were like blades piercing her will.
"Don't lie to me. I know you sent someone to Forks! Who was it?"
A tremor ran through Victoria from her jaw down her body. Her voice broke when she finally spoke: "His name is Riley! It's Riley!"
Nate frowned. That name… he'd heard it only minutes ago, whispered among some neophytes. He clenched his jaw, then released it roughly. He dropped her to the ground with a dry sound.
He waited, motionless, until she stopped writhing in pain. Then his voice returned, cold as a steel blade: "Where is he now?"
Victoria lifted her gaze, her eyes glassy with fear, and said quickly: "I don't know. He was supposed to make noise in Forks… enough so the entire Cullen family wouldn't come to Seattle."
Nate tilted his head, his interest sparked like a flame. "What exactly was the order you gave him?"
Victoria swallowed out of habit, her voice heavy, dragging the words: "I knew there were two Cullens in Seattle. The plan was to send Riley to attack the house of the girl who caused all this… that way, we'd prevent the rest of the family from leaving town. He was only supposed to attack someone close to her and return immediately. With that small window, we could hunt down the two Cullens here and kill them… then go to Forks for the rest."
Nate didn't take his eyes off her face, analyzing every word, every gesture.
"But since Riley didn't come back… I thought he was dead." He said it in a dry, indifferent tone, as if the life or death of his own ally didn't weigh on his conscience.
Nate, frowning with an apparently unbreakable calm, answered in a deep voice: "I know he survived. Edward saw him escape."
Without giving her time to react, he ordered in a dry, authoritative tone: "Call him back. Now."
Victoria stared at him silently for a moment. A strange spark lit up in her eyes, and a small smile formed on her lips. The fear that had kept her still began to fade.
"I'm glad to see how much you suffer," she murmured with venomous satisfaction. "That idiot finally did something right."
Nate felt his fury rise through his body like an uncontrollable wave.
"Your entire revenge plan is stupid. You only hurt innocent people for no reason."
"Innocent!" Victoria shouted, her voice bouncing off the factory's metal walls. "None of you is innocent! You killed James!"
Nate didn't wait any longer. With a sharp movement, he kicked her hard, sending her flying several meters until she crashed against one of the walls. The impact echoed with a rough crack, and the structure vibrated for a moment.
"James attacked us! James was the one who refused to back down! I warned him myself, but that fool didn't listen! My grandmother, on the other hand, was a woman who never hurt anyone!"
Victoria, supporting herself with effort on her only arm, pushed herself to sit against the cracked wall. Her gaze lost focus on an undefined point, and for a moment, the fire of her hatred seemed to extinguish, revealing an unexpected vulnerability, a fragility she rarely showed.
Nate approached slowly, his shadow enveloping her completely like tangible darkness.
"We could do this forever," he whispered, low, icy, and loaded with threat. "I'll tear you apart piece by piece… wait for you to recover… and do it again. We have all eternity… just you and me."
He leaned in closer, lowering his voice to a velvet murmur, almost a caress, as if his words could brush her skin.
"Or… you can tell me everything you know about Riley… and I promise I'll end you quickly. I'll even…" his voice dropped to an intimate whisper, "tell you James's last words… the last thing he said about how much you meant to him."
Those words made Victoria react. Her eyes, once empty and dull, snapped wide open, lit by an intense flash of tension and something deeper — a genuine interest hard to hide.
Victoria thought it over carefully, as if each of Nate's words weighed on her soul. Her eyes slowly scanned the shattered remains of the neophytes he had killed, then dropped to her own mutilated body: legless, armless, vulnerable. Finally, with a mix of resignation and defiance, she asked in a low but firm voice:
"How do I know you're not lying to me? That after I tell you everything, you'll just torture me until you're satisfied and leave?"
Nate looked straight into her eyes, his pupils cold and calculating, and replied in a voice that admitted no argument:
"What you tell me will only save me time. I keep my word. If you speak now, this will end quickly… and I'll tell you what James said."
Victoria hesitated a moment longer, weighing every word, every gesture. Finally, with a sigh that seemed to break her armor, she gave in.
"I found him in this very city," she began, her voice trembling but clear. "I was looking for someone who could protect me, someone to help me get my revenge. I found Riley. He was a tall, strong, and intelligent young man. Perfect for what I needed. I turned him by force and seduced him until he was completely in love with me. I was disgusted every second I was with him, but I pretended well enough for him to believe the act."
Nate absorbed every word carefully, as if filing pieces of a crucial puzzle. Then he asked seriously:
"What is he like? Do you have any way to find him?"
Victoria nodded, describing him precisely:
"He's blond, muscular, and clearly a neophyte." Then she fell silent, thinking for a few seconds before continuing: "At the back of this factory, there's an old office where he and I kept some belongings. There, you might find something with his scent. If you had someone who could track him, you could find him… someone like James."
Nate noticed how Victoria's face turned nostalgic, releasing a slight, almost inaudible sigh. It was clear she hadn't lied about anything she told.
Slowly, he approached and took her head in his hands, a mix of hardness and solemnity.
"You're lucky I'm a man of my word," he said, with a threatening gleam in his eyes.
Just as he was about to tear her head off, Victoria, desperate and with one last breath of hope, shouted:
"Wait, wait! Tell me James's last words!"
Nate kept pulling Victoria's head, and soon unsettling crunches began to sound, as if bones and muscles gave way under his force. But just as it seemed it was all going to end, he stopped. With an almost bored indifference, he let out a slow sound:
"Ah, yes…"
Then his voice changed, becoming grave and solemn, as if recalling an important episode from his past:
"That day, in the ballet studio in Phoenix, I warned James that if he attacked Bella and me, not only would he be in danger. I told him he had to think of you, because he would drag you with him…"
Victoria's eyes opened wide, surprised and attentive, feeling every word like a dagger piercing her mind.
Nate continued, now with a light and almost frivolous tone, but loaded with meaning:
"He thought about it for a few seconds, and then replied…"
His voice grew rougher and wilder, imitating James's unique way of speaking, like a determined hunter:
"It's worth it for the ultimate hunt…"
Hearing those words, Victoria's eyes opened even wider. If she were human, tears would have streamed from her pupils. Nate's precise imitation struck her with brutal certainty: this was no lie or invention.
Without giving her time to recover, Nate continued, with a touch of sarcasm and harshness:
"I guess he did to you what you did to Riley, huh? How ironic…"
Victoria heard those words, and her expression changed quickly: surprise gave way to pure and heartbreaking rage. Her screams broke the silence, filled with desperation and contained fury.
Nate let her vent for a few seconds, measuring the exact moment when the storm in her voice began to fade. Then, with cold and ruthless determination, he fulfilled his promise and, with a quick, precise movement, tore her head off in a single slice, ending her suffering.
................................................
Nate remained motionless for several minutes, standing in the middle of that empty factory, Victoria's head still in his hands. He let out a deep sigh that seemed to drag away part of the rage that had consumed him. That same relentless fury had now left him with a strange emptiness, a hollow sensation weighing on his chest.
With slow, measured steps, his mind somewhat clouded by the events and uncertainty, he began gathering the pieces of the neophytes and Victoria's mutilated remains. He carefully piled them into a chaotic heap, a kind of macabre altar to the violence he had just unleashed.
He then decided to go to the old office Victoria had mentioned. Upon entering, the dimness mixed with dust and moisture of the forgotten place. He rummaged through the belongings until he found a man's shirt, wrinkled and slightly stained. He took it carefully, folded it, and put it into a plastic bag, which he then compressed tightly to seal before storing it in the inside pocket of his jacket.
He also found an old lighter, worn by time, and stored it with the same caution. Unhurried, he returned to the place where he had left the pile of bodies. He took out the lighter and, with a controlled and almost mechanical movement, lit it and threw it toward the pile.
The fire spread quickly. As if the bodies were soaked in fuel, the flames rapidly consumed the clothing and lifeless flesh. Nate stood there, watching the tongues of fire dance and devour everything, while the factory glowed with a warm and dim light.
In those minutes that felt like hours, a deep loneliness enveloped him. More alone than ever. He had fulfilled part of his purpose, yes, but now everything seemed meaningless. None of this served to ease the weight he felt in his soul.
He wished, with an almost painful urgency, to return home. He imagined his grandmother waiting for him, as if her presence could erase all the darkness from that place. But he knew that wouldn't happen, that home no longer existed for him.
His mind turned to Alice, and a wave of sadness and longing swept through him. For Nate, barely a day had passed since he last saw her, but it felt like years. An invisible force pushed him to seek her, as if her mere presence could extinguish all the bad thoughts plaguing him.
He remained still, eyes closed, imagining her smile, her touch, feeling her scent nearby, and hearing her musical laughter. He stayed motionless, letting the fire and memories consume him, until a distant sound began to grow in the air: footsteps, voices, a large group approaching the factory.