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000
Tracking down the Cullens was easy as hell.
She arrived in the outskirts of Forks, Washington within an hour of leaving the private plane hanger outside Seattle she had parted with her coven-mates from. As directed, she had stayed away from the human population by cutting through the Olympic National Forest, the towering firs and spruce providing ample, although unnecessary cover for her exposed skin as the sky was an impenetrable cover of thick silver clouds. She was more likely to be drenched in rain than the sun, a stark contrast to the warm Italian summer she had grown used to.
Of course, as she neared her destination, curiosity got the better of her. That deep longing to reconnect to her past, to put the scattered pieces of her past together to explain what exactly happened to her, won out over her masters' explicit command to keep her return unknown. As long as she was careful to stay away from humans and alert, sneaking a glimpse at where she once lived was plausible.
With the address of Isabella Swan also ingrained in her head as part of the information report she had studied on the jet ride, Aurora approached the break in the forest behind a street of houses, but didn't dare step outside the foliage line that successfully hid her or toward the human-made trail between two houses—Isabella Swan's...and hers.
Peeking through the greenery to observe the dull red, two-story house that she once lived in, Aurora was disappointed to feel nothing, but vague familiarity—she had seen photographs of the houses already in her research. There was a nice sports car left in the driveway, a little gaudy in her opinion and certainly something she didn't think would belong to her mother, Stella Reyes, a pragmatic, humble doctor.
Her most peculiar discovery however was the unexpected memorial dedicated to her at the side of the trail's start. A tribute filled with pictures of her, jars of candles now filled with water, a few small stuffed toys, and so many flowers—new too. People had loved her a lot.
It pained her she didn't know any of them. No sudden memories were sparked, no sudden bursts of clarity, or anything resembling fulfillment hit her like she had wished. Overwhelmed by the sudden rush of emotion, she ditched the area faster than she could blink, and returned to the path toward her true destination.
The Cullen's home was a beautiful building, industrial corners softened with cedar details. Quickly realizing the house was empty of the vampires she was looking for, she went around the back, and followed the freshest scent, left not too long ago deeper into the woods. It was a strong scent, masculine—cinnamon and leather and something else.
They were chasing after someone—or something. There were too many scents intermingling in the area, making the task of narrowing down the exact number difficult. They were so focused on their target they hadn't realized she was not far behind them, trying to figure out how to approach them while not interrupting whatever they were doing. The key to her mission was to be smart by playing dumb, like the naive, weak human they had remembered her as, not the trained, deadly Volturi guard member.
