The silver Volvo and the black Jeep screeched into the gravel driveway of the Cullen estate, the tires kicking up wet stones. Inside the house, the atmosphere was already thick with a sterile, stagnant tension.
Esme was waiting in the foyer, her kind face etched with confusion as her children surged through the door three hours before school was set to end. "What happened? I felt the cars coming from miles away—"
"The study. Now," Alice said, her voice a sharp, brittle snap. She didn't look at anyone as she climbed the stairs, her movements lacking their usual fluid grace.
They gathered in the large, wood-paneled room Carlisle used for family meetings. It was a place of history and calm, filled with thousands of books and artifacts from centuries of travel. But today, the room felt small.
Ten minutes later, the front door opened and closed below. Carlisle appeared in the doorway of the study, still wearing his charcoal suit from the hospital. He took one look at his family—Alice trembling with silent fury, Jasper radiating protective waves of jagged edges, and Edward standing apart like an outcast—and sighed.
"Someone explain to me why the house feels like it's about to ignite," Carlisle requested, walking to the head of the table. "I received a dozen frantic mental echoes before I even left the clinic. What happened?"
"Mame Swan happened," Rosalie spat, leaning against the mahogany bookshelf.
Carlisle looked at Alice. "Alice? Did you have another vision?"
"It wasn't a vision," Alice whispered, finally looking up. Her eyes were dark, almost black. "It was a warning. Mame knows, Carlisle. He knows about the Will of Helsing. He called himself a Successor."
Carlisle paused, his expression shifting into one of deep, intellectual skepticism. "Helsing? Alice, that is a name from the dark ages of our kind. It's a legend. Yes, there was a man, and yes, there are books—even the humans have turned his name into a myth—but that was centuries before Mame was born. He has no connection to it. The Quileute elders likely mentioned it as a scare tactic while he was training on the reservation. It's just a story to give a human boy courage."
"It didn't feel like a story," Edward interrupted, his voice tight. He stepped forward, his eyes scanning the room as if trying to justify himself. "Carlisle, I saw it in her head. I saw the way his presence felt. It wasn't just words. He was projecting a void that—"
"I wasn't finished, Edward!"
The shout shocked the room into silence. Alice was standing now, her small hands balled into fists. It was the first time any of them had seen her truly angry at one of her own.
"You had no right," Alice hissed, her voice trembling. "You dove into my mind without a second of hesitation. That was a private moment—a moment where I felt a terror I haven't felt since I was human—and you rifled through it like it was common gossip! I was going to tell the family! I was going to explain! But you couldn't wait, could you?"
Carlisle stepped toward her, his hands raised in a placating gesture. "Alice, please. Edward was only worried. He acted out of a desire to protect the family—"
"See?"
Jasper's voice was like a low growl of thunder. He moved to Alice's side, his eyes fixed on Carlisle with a newfound, biting clarity. "I never noticed it before. Maybe I didn't want to. but it's always like this, isn't it? You always take his side, Carlisle. No matter how much he oversteps, no matter whose privacy he violates with that 'gift' of his, you find a way to make it Edward's burden instead of his fault."
"Jasper, that's not fair," Esme interjected, her voice pained. "We are a family. We support one another."
"It's entirely fair," Rosalie interrupted, her voice a cold blade. She walked to the center of the room, her eyes flashing with a century of repressed frustration. "Look at us. If any of the rest of us had exposed our secret to two humans in a single week, we'd be discussing whether to turn them or silence them to protect the coven. But because it's Edward's 'singer,' we wait. Because it's Edward's 'rival,' we hesitate."
Rosalie turned her glare toward Carlisle, her lip curling. "More and more humans know exactly what we are. The boy is building traps in the woods and calling on the names of ancient hunters, and you do nothing, Carlisle. You sit on your hands and preach peace while our secret bleeds out. And we all know why. It's because you can't bring yourself to tell your golden son 'no'."
The silence that followed was deafening. Edward looked as if he had been struck, his gaze falling to the floor. Carlisle stood at the head of the table, the weight of his leadership suddenly feeling like a leaden shroud.
Outside, the rain turned into a downpour, blurring the world beyond the glass walls. The Cullens were no longer a perfect, united front. The Anomaly hadn't just threatened their lives—he had started to fracture their foundation.
The glass-walled living room of the Cullen house was a powder keg of immortal tension by the time Carlisle arrived. The rain lashed furiously against the windows, a chaotic backdrop to the fractured family dynamic playing out inside.
Resentment had been brewing since the incident with the van. Rosalie was furious at Edward for exposing them, Emmett was on edge, and the revelation that Edward had been actively digging through his siblings' minds to monitor their private frustrations had pushed the coven to the brink of a shouting match.
Before the argument could escalate any further, Esme stepped into the center of the room.
She didn't raise her voice, but the sheer weight of her maternal authority commanded instant silence. Her warm, heart-shaped face was lined with a profound sadness that instantly made the others lower their defensive postures.
"That is enough," Esme said, her voice a soothing but firm balm over the room's frayed nerves. She looked at Rosalie, Emmett, and Alice, her golden eyes full of genuine regret. "If Carlisle and I have ever made any of you feel as though Edward is favored... if we made you feel like your concerns are secondary, then we are deeply sorry. We did not mean to do that. We are a family, and we must stick together, especially now."
Rosalie uncrossed her arms, her hostile glare softening marginally at Esme's sincere apology.
Esme then turned her gaze to Edward, her expression hardening with maternal disappointment. "But Alice is right, Edward. You went too far. Listening to the surface thoughts of a crowded room to protect us is one thing. But actively diving into the minds of your own family—searching through their private conversations and grievances just because you feel defensive—is something I cannot just sit by and overlook like it's nothing."
Edward looked down, his jaw tight, unable to meet his mother's eyes.
Esme gestured toward the far side of the room, where Edythe stood quietly by the bookshelf. "Both you and Edythe share this same gift. But she does not use hers as a weapon against her own family."
Every eye in the room shifted to Edythe. The female telepath looked just as surprised and uncomfortable by Edward's recent overstepping as the rest of them. She stepped forward, her posture defensive but honest.
"I don't," Edythe stated clearly, looking at Rosalie and Alice to reassure them. "I have never actively dug into any of your private thoughts unless I have explicitly asked for your permission. The only time I dive deep is when we need to see if a human has discovered our secret, or if there is an active threat. That's the line."
Across the room, Jasper nodded slowly. The empath released a subtle, calming wave of energy, taking the sharpest edges off the room's anxiety. "She's telling the truth," Jasper confirmed, his voice a low, steady drawl. "There is no deception from her. Edythe honors your privacy."
Esme gave Edythe an appreciative nod before looking back at Edward. "Of course no one likes their private thoughts and intimate moments put on display for the world to see. You of all people should understand the burden of a crowded mind, Edward."
Carlisle watched his wife handle the fractured coven with a mixture of awe and profound gratitude. When Esme finally looked his way, Carlisle met her eyes, a silent, deeply emotional thank you passing between them. He had been so focused on the medical and tactical implications of Mame Swan that he had nearly let his family tear itself apart from the inside.
Carlisle stepped forward, moving to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Esme.
"Esme is right. We are truly sorry if our focus on keeping Edward's mistake contained made the rest of you feel sidelined," Carlisle said, his voice carrying the measured grace of a leader taking responsibility. He looked around the room, meeting each of his children's eyes. "But we have a critical situation on our hands. We need to finish our discussion about Mame Swan and the nomads first. Once the perimeter is secure and the threat is assessed, we will deal with this family matter properly. Are we in agreement?"
Rosalie gave a single, tight nod. Emmett sighed and leaned back against the wall. Alice, still visibly shaken by Mame's threat, clutched Jasper's hand tightly and nodded.
"Good," Carlisle said, his tone shifting back to absolute, clinical focus. "Edward, you said Mame invoked the name Helsing. Tell me exactly what he said, word for word."
The heavy rain continued to assault the glass walls of the Cullen living room, creating a frantic rhythm that matched the tension inside.
Edward took a breath, preparing to relay the conversation he had pulled from Alice's mind. "He told Alice that if—"
"Let me explain it, Edward," Alice interrupted, her voice uncharacteristically sharp. She stepped out from under Jasper's protective arm, wrapping her own arms around herself as if suddenly cold. "You heard it in my head, but you didn't feel it. I was the one sitting next to him."
Carlisle gave Edward a brief look, signaling him to step back, and gave Alice his full attention. "Tell us, Alice. What exactly did he say?"
Alice took a shaky breath, her golden eyes wide as the memory replayed itself. "It was the way he looked at me. Since he arrived in Forks, I haven't been able to see his future. It's just static. But today, sitting next to him... it wasn't just mental static. It was physical. He felt heavy, like a void that was pulling the air out of the room. And his eyes..."
She shuddered, a genuine, physical tremor that made Jasper instantly tense.
"His eyes were completely dead, Carlisle," Alice whispered. "There was no fear. No hesitation. Humans are supposed to look at us and subconsciously know they are prey. But Mame looked at me like I was the prey."
Rosalie scoffed, though it lacked its usual bite. "He's an arrogant teenager—"
"He knew about the nomads," Alice cut in, silencing Rosalie instantly. "He looked right at me and said he knows there are trackers out there. And he said if others of our kind come to this town, and if they try to attack his family or the people he cares about..."
Alice paused, the weight of the ancient name resting heavily on her tongue.
"...he said they are going to find out exactly why our kind had to go into hiding in the first place. That they are going to find out that humans who inherited the will of Helsing are still alive."
The silence that followed was absolute, suffocating in its intensity.
Alice looked down at her pale, marble hands. "We are supposed to be indestructible. We don't age, we don't get sick, and nothing but another immortal can break us. But when he looked at me and said that..." She looked up, meeting Carlisle's grave expression. "For the first time since I woke up as a vampire, I felt genuine fear. He wasn't just making a threat. He was making a promise."
Jasper stepped closer to her, his brow furrowed in deep concentration. "She's not exaggerating, Carlisle. The fear I'm feeling from her... it's primal. It's the kind of terror a mortal feels when a predator is at their throat. The boy triggered a survival instinct in a vampire."
Carlisle turned slowly, looking out the rain-streaked window toward the dense, dark tree line of the Forks forest. The situation was escalating far faster than he had anticipated. A human with Quileute training, unnatural physical density, a mental shield, and the absolute conviction of a legendary monster hunter.
And on top of that, nomadic trackers were on their way, drawn by the chaos Edward had caused.
"We need a perimeter," Carlisle said softly, but his tone carried the absolute authority of a general preparing for a siege. "If the nomads cross into Forks, they will trigger a war. And Mame Swan will be right in the middle of it."