Chapter Text
Twenty-year-old Charlotte Macer did not know who the men were that took her brother, Danny, or why they took him. She was aware only of the directive her father, Ben, left her before they killed him: to go to Forks, Washington, in order to find Miles Matheson, for he was the only one who could help her get her brother back. But the journey from Chicago took her long enough, and she felt desperately like she was losing out to time. So, when she approached the Reservation in La Push, looking for the local wolf pack, she was ready to give details to just about anyone who may be able to help.
It was only her deeply ingrained paranoia that made her bite her tongue in silence until it bled. After all, who among a crowd of strangers—shapeshifters or no—could be trusted?
She had never even been outside Illinois before four days ago, when she first began hitchhiking her way to the Olympic Peninsula along the west coast of the continent. By her side stood no one, and in her dreams she relived that day her brother was ripped from her hands. Although she tossed and turned, hurting for Danny, she was just as plagued by the questions: Who were these people? How had they bested her? Why did they take Danny? What had her dad seemed to know? How was this Miles guy her only hope?
And all the while, five letters tattooed in green on the forearms of the men in black combat gear were just as permanently inscribed in her memory: INCOG.
She swallowed her thoughts as she stood overlooking the Reservation. Her long, wavy blonde hair was being strewn about by the wind, a brown jacket and pair of blue jeans keeping her safe from the chilling winds that sometimes invaded Washington in early September. A little way from the treeline where she stood was a shifter only a few years younger than she with black, spiky hair, and he wore a smile as he walked alongside a young tween girl with reddish hair. Charlotte listened from where she stood, her hearing heightened since her own transformation five years earlier.
"...bloodsuckers!"
"Mom says your insults get old."
"Oh, and Bella is right about everything, huh? Nessie, you'll learn soon enough that no one's perfect."
"Even Mom?"
"Especially her."
"What about Grandpa?"
"He may be Chief of Police in Forks and can drink anyone under the table, but he doesn't know half of what goes on in this world."
"Why not, Jacob?"
"We've been over this." Jacob sighed, unable to smother completely his smile despite his best efforts. "He can't know some things. It's too dangerous. All that matters is he knows you're special and loves you for who you are."
Charlotte, bored and by her nature impatient, tuned out a little. At least she knew she was about in the right place and that the Chief of Police in the town to which she was headed was partly clued in on the unexplainable. She wondered if she could talk to him about finding Miles Matheson.
As she debated again whether to approach the Reservation, she noticed the teen, Jacob, and the girl, Nessie, now looking toward her where she stood uphill. As neutral as possible, Charlotte raised her right hand briefly in an attempt at a nonthreatening greeting. Knowing how much her own father had sheltered her secret from others and how dangerous a world they lived in, she allowed Jacob to approach her, herself not daring to trespass onto the property.
"You a long way from home?"
She swallowed. "I have no home. Not anymore." Admission: the first step toward acceptance.
He looked her up and down, and Charlotte could see him turning words over behind his eyes. "Sorry to hear that."
Charlotte sort of shrugged before squaring her shoulders at Jacob. "Have you lived here for long?" His eyes narrowed on her. She added, "I'm looking for someone. Miles?" He remained silent. "Miles Matheson?"
"Sorry, I can't help you."
He started to turn, but Charlotte reached out and grabbed ahold of his left shoulder. "Please—my brother—"
"I don't sense another shifter."
She was quickly getting upset by being blown off so easily, after four long days of searching for this pack of shifters, so she spoke hurriedly. "He isn't. He isn't anything. I think they took him by mistake."
"'They'?"
Charlotte shifted on her feet, her eyes fixating on a tree over Jacob's shoulder. She swallowed. "Look, a lot's happened, a lot I don't want to talk about. What's important is that I think they came for me because of what I am, and I need to find Miles Matheson. He can help me."
"If there are people after shifters, I wanna know about it. I have to. To protect my pack."
His shoulders were held stiffly, his face leaning forward, and as a result Charlotte felt defensive, and her instinctive response was to be aggressive back. "Tell me where I can find Miles, and I'll tell you what I know."
The black-haired shifter turned back to see Nessie behind him, and he pulled back and relaxed his stance. "I think I am coming on too strong."
Charlotte's brows drew together, and her head tilted to the left. A silent question.
He continued, "I've lived here my whole life, but I don't know a Miles of any kind. I wish I could be more helpful."
"He lives in Forks," Charlotte tried, but Jacob shook his head. "Well, do you know anyone who might be able to help me look? Someone in our line of living?" Charlotte wanted to ask directly about the police chief in town, but knowing that Jacob already was reluctant to divulge, she bit her tongue to keep her earlier act of eavesdropping hidden and hoped he would suggest it himself. She was saved instead by Nessie.
"My grandpa's Chief of Police. He doesn't really know what we are, just that we are something else. He might help if he thought we were at risk, too."
Jacob looked displeased at Nessie's openness but seemed to like the twelve-year-old's tactic.
Charlotte hesitated before caving. "Not here in the open."
So Nessie and Jacob invited Charlotte onto the Reservation, leading her toward the boy shifter's house. "We have gone up against serious threats before," Nessie said, but it was hardly reassuring coming from a twelve-year-old.
Jacob looked at the girl and smiled quickly before turning his attention to Charlotte. They had reached a porch. He tried as reassuringly as possible, "Tell us what happened."
Charlie took a deep breath and exhaled.
"Four days ago, after dark, three men broke into my house. They were wearing all black: Black shoes, black vests over black tees, black cargo pants. They had utility belts and strange tools—weapons even. One of their handheld devices—black and boxey—jumbled me up somehow. I couldn't move right at first when they hit me with it. No, zapped me.
"My dad and Danny heard the ruckus and came down the stairs. One of them shot my dad. Danny charged at that man. I couldn't really see what happened. I reached out and grabbed Danny's shirt tail with my hands, but then they ripped him from his shirt.
"They scrambled, the three intruders, and I tried to stop them, but I couldn't shift. I think it was the zapper box. They said something about bagging a shifter. One of them came toward me, but my dad fired at them with a gun I didn't know he had. He missed, and they got away.
"My brother, Danny, was abducted by these men. It was supposed to be me. I have to get him back."
Charlie didn't want to mention the tattoos exposed on their left forearms. She had to hold something back. She felt more in control that way.
"Where is your dad now?" Jacob asked.
She wore her feelings on her sleeve, so one could hear the tremor in her voice, see it in her eyes. Charlotte knew it, and she hated that. "Dead. But before he died, he told me, 'Find Miles Matheson in Forks. Your name will be enough to gain his trust. He will help you get Danny.'"
Jacob looked sullen; Nessie, as if she herself had been wounded. Nessie said, "Well, cops have resources, right? Like, databases to search?"
Charlotte was hopeful. It was the only lead she now had on finding Miles. "Think he will help?"
"Charlie's a bit clueless on this side of things, but he would do anything for his family. You say these guys were trying to bag shifters?"
"Charlie?"
"Charlie Swan."
"That's my name, too—Charlotte."
"Jacob."
"And I am Renesmee," said Nessie.
"I don't suppose you would be willing to drive me to the station in town?" Charlotte asked.
"No need," said Jacob. "He’s inside. Best friends with my dad for years now."
Jacob led the girls inside. Two men drinking beer sat in the living room around an old television which played a football game. The brown-eyed man in the recliner turned toward the door. He had short, brown hair and the tips had started to silver. A mustache stood thick and nearing bushy atop his lip, and it curved into a small smile at the sight of the young girl. “Grandbaby,” he said, grin growing bigger as he spread his arms and Nessie skipped toward him.
Nessie reached in to hug the man, then put her hand on his cheek and said, “You smell like beer, Grandpa.”
Charlotte blinked. Grandpa? He hardly looked older than forty. Was this drunk the police chief?
“I’m trying something not any different from what I usually do.”
The man who must have been Jacob’s father said from the couch, “That’s not true! You didn’t start with the shot of whiskey.”
“The man’s got a point,” Nessie’s grandfather said, gesturing with his bottle of beer. “And these aren’t cans. See? Glass. Spent the big bucks today.”
Nessie kept silent and dropped her hand. Her grandpa blinked a few times before looking quizzically over at Charlotte in the entryway, analyzing her.
Charlotte swallowed at his gaze. She felt sized-up and like she would lose. When he first started speaking, the depth of his voice startled her, and she flinched.
“And you are?”
“Macer,” her voice’s shaking betrayed her confidence. She cleared her throat. “Charlotte Macer.”
The man sat back in the chair, and it felt like he was looking down on her.
She hated it, but for several reasons—none of which she could name—felt that she had to gain his favor.
“Chief Swan,” he offered impersonally before turning his attention to the television, his eyes partly glazing over. After two plays, he hitched his elbow on the back of the seat and used it to lever himself up straighter, turning back to her. “How can I help you?”
Charlotte drew in a breath and stabilized herself. She straightened her shoulders. “I’m looking for a man named Miles Matheson.”
Chief Swan looked to the floor and shrugged before catching her eyes. “Never heard of him.”
“No,” she said as she stepped forward, her voice heightened from the nervous rush of adrenaline still lingering in her limbs and lungs. “He has to be here.”
“What do you want me to say, kid? It’s a fairly small town.”
She sighed and looked down at her feet. “My brother was abducted. My dad was murdered.” She looked him in the eyes with her blue ones and said evenly, “Please, help me find Miles Matheson. He is the only one who can help me rescue my brother, and if you can find him, then you’re the only one who can help me right now.”
“Did these three men have any distinguishing marks? Scars? Tattoos?” asked Chief Swan, his eyes a little softer than before.
“N-no,” lied Charlotte, and the chief’s eyes narrowed.
“Look at me when you answer.”
Charlotte looked up. She opened her mouth to talk and paused, her thinking taking her down a different course of conversation. “I didn’t say anything about the people who did this.”
The chief raised an eyebrow. “No, my granddaughter did. She relayed to me everything you said to her along the treeline at the edge of the Reservation.”
Charlotte looked over at Nessie, who recoiled, sheepish. “I talk with my hands sometimes.”
Earlier. The hand to the face.
Charlotte sighed. “Yeah, alright.” She returned Chief Swan’s gaze. “Tattoos. Every one of them.”
“Of?”
“A word. ‘Incog’.”
Jacob spoke up from the corner of the room. “That’s eerie.” The police chief made a face at him. “Charlie, these guys were trying to nab her—a shifter, and they had the gear to do so. Then they took her brother and killed her father. By the way, that’s what I am—shapeshifters are what the Quileute are."
Charlie Swan looked from Jacob back to Charlotte Macer, gritting his teeth in frustration. He reached out and wrapped his arm around Nessie. “Is my family in danger, Jacob?”
“Grand—”
“Ness, no.”
She heeded.
“I don’t know,” answered Jacob. "If they could affect us the way she described? Who knows what they're capable of."
Charlie looked displeased. Now that his attention was back on the television, Charlotte wasn’t sure if he found more displeasure in the conversation or the Seattle Seahawk defense. Then the chief sighed, stretched his arms up above his head, and stood. “Alright, kid,” he dug in his pockets and tossed his keys toward the blonde. “You’re driving.”
Charlotte looked down at the keys in her hand and let out a breath herself. Suddenly, she wasn’t so sure of this.
“And tell me everything, with every possible detail. Anything you remember at all—wait, let me get the tape recorder, so I don’t forget.” He picked up an unopened bottle of beer, too. When she raised a brow condescendingly, the chief quipped, “For the road.”
-
“‘Zapper box’?” The chief mocked from the passenger’s seat.
“Well, that’s all I have to go on really to describe the thing.”
“Professionals usually refer to such objects as stun guns. I think it’s a rhyming thing. Seems clever. Or catchy. Although those things aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.”
“It wasn’t a stun gun! It was something else.” The chief smiled at her stupidly. “I’m serious. I’ve been TASERed before.”
Charlie angled his head at her, raising his eyebrows and forming a small ‘o’ with his mouth. “Please do divulge.”
Charlotte shook her head, fighting the smile that was weaseling its way across her lips as it edged away at her irritation. “It doesn’t matter. That affected my muscle control very briefly. But this was different. It was... more somehow. I couldn’t hear right, I couldn’t shift—I could barely even register what was going on.”
Charlie’s face had changed from playful to pensive, even uptight a little. “Might affect the nervous system. Autonomic even.”
“Autonomic?”
He continued, “Some things—like your muscles—you can control completely. Some things, like your emotions, you can’t so much. They result from nerve firings in your brain which communicate to other parts of the body. Jumble the messages up, and it’ll take longer to decode and process.”
“What makes you think it’s auto—? That kind of thing.”
“What motivates you into shifting?”
“I’m usually really angry, or upset, or scared.”
“Exactly. It’s driven by an emotional response. Emotions are controlled by specific areas of the brain.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Oh, I haven’t always been Chief of Police!” Charlie put his hands on the back of his head, tying his fingers together. “Used to meddle around a little before deciding to become a cop. Back when I was young and spry.”
“...How old are you, by the way?”
“How dare you!” declared the chief in mock offense, right eyebrow raised, voice raspy. “And don’t ask so many questions. I’m running this interrogation.”
“Whatever you say, Grandpa.”
Charlie chuckled. “Yeah... That’s a very long and very weird story.”
“How weird?”
“Ness was born not quite two years ago.”
“Yep, that’s a new one. For me, at least.”
“My daughter’s barely 18.” He paused. Charlotte could tell from the little time she had spent with Chief Swan that he was good at reading people. Charlotte had not been able to read him well in return. But she could definitely tell that that was a pause; his inflection slightly hung in the air, as if he had planned to say more but thought better of it. “Guess you’re about that age?”
“I’ve got a few years on her,” said Charlotte, winking.
“Oo, you’re playful, too,” Charlie said. “We’ll get along fine enough.”
Charlotte had to admit she felt less weight on her chest than any other time in the last four days. It was the first time she had stopped thinking about her problems and had focused in on someone else’s. Charlie had something weighing him down, something relating to his daughter, and the earlier memory of his drinking only reiterated that, especially when she heard the sound of air pressure escaping from an unlidded bottle coming from the seat next to her. “Hey, we’re in a car! Open container!”
“Don’t worry. You can trust me. I won’t turn on you.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
She reached over to grab at the bottle, but Charlie pulled it back into his right shoulder, using his frame and the car door to help keep it from her grasp.
“Bold move for someone begging for my help.”
“Oh, come on! I wasn’t begging—!” She withdrew her reach and placed her right hand back on the steering wheel.
“There was some whine in that voice.”
“No—”
“Definitely some quivering.” Charlie took an awkward swallow of his beer.
A corner of Charlotte’s mouth had turned up, as she tried mockingly, “Okay.”
“Finally. Admitting defeat.”
“I wasn’t admitting def—” Charlotte turned the car to the right down a road of houses at which Charlie gestured. “You are going to help me, though, right?”
Charlie sighed. It was something he did a lot, apparently. “Kid, what happens if we can’t find this guy?”
“I go after them anyway.”
“It’s too dangerous.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do. You do. It’s why you’re looking for this guy you’ve never even met. Why you need him.”
“I need my brother. My dad knew that this is who could get him back.”
“You need to think things through yourself, or your brother won’t have a sister to rescue him.”
She risked taking her eyes off the wet, gray road before her and turned them on the man in the car with her.
She spoke slowly and deliberately. “These guys? They were after me, and they took my brother. I let them take my brother. I’m going to get him back, with or without you, with or without Miles Matheson.”
“INCOG isn’t an organization you can simply take on.”
Charlotte slammed on the breaks, and Charlie groaned, lurching forward and wrapping his left arm around his stomach. “What do you mean? What do you know?”
Charlie burped.
“What are you holding back?! I’ve wasted four days already looking for Miles Matheson! It’ll only take one good rain to lose track of my brother forever. I’ve come too far to be thwarted by some self-loathing alcoholic—”
“Hey, hey! Holier-Than-Thou! Calm yourself down... I’m Chief of Police in a town overrun by hormonal teens that shift into wolves and centuries-old vampires and God knows what else. I sure as hell know a thing or two about INCOG. And, tch—‘self-loathing’—please.”
“Now who’s whining?” rebuked Charlotte, grinding her teeth in anger.
“I’m feeling a little defensive after the whole slamming on the brakes and me thing. For future reference, there’s no need for name-calling. Now pull the car ahead a few more houses.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No, we’re not moving an inch, not until you tell me—”
“I am, I am. In my house. Three properties down.” He gestured with his hand. “See that old red pickup?”
Charlotte stared him down. She did not trust him. She felt she could not trust anyone.
“I get it. Your dad is dead, your brother is as good as it, and you just wanna keep what’s left of your family together. Just some semblance of it. Believe me, Charlotte, I get it.”
He looked at her, and for the first time, Charlotte could get a complete read on him, and she saw it: his misery, his exhaustion, his helplessness, his isolation.
When she spoke, it was soft and understanding. “Sometimes I get selfish, defensive, and judgy.”
“I’m always selfish, defensive, and judgy. But people just sum it up in a single word: asshole.”
Charlotte let a small smile escape. “You know, from what Renesmee and Jacob were saying earlier, they made it sound like you were nearly a dunce at all this supernatural stuff.”
“Interesting choice of word, supernatural. You seem pretty natural to me.”
She didn’t say anything. She had pulled up the car and parked in the driveway. Once they got through the door and inside, she prompted Charlie to give her the details. “What’s INCOG, and why do they want me?”