Chapter One: The Ghost of a Girl - Jake

For the first time in a long time, all five of us were out on patrol tonight and it felt good to be a pack again. Leah rarely joined us these days, being more consumed by the demands of her two children Harriet and Moses, than the need to keep the population of the Olympic peninsula safe from vampires. Harriet was nearly two and Moses had been born five months ago. Leah was hoping to have had an extra month on 'maternity leave' from the pack, but we'd needed her tonight.

Alice had called me. Alerted to a vampire's decision to see this remote corner of North America as a quiet place to hole up in and take advantage of unsuspecting hikers. That wasn't something we were happy with. Tonight we'd hunted him down and taken him out.

We were returning to the reservation with a spring in our step. I could hear the thoughts of the others and appreciated the sense of excitement in them. For the first time in a long time, we'd done what we had been given the ability to change into wolves for and it gave the pack a renewed sense of purpose. There were only so many times that you could patrol an empty park without slowly going mad.

Our route brought us back to La Push from the southeast. Seth, suddenly overcome with a surge of exhilaration, bounded ahead of us. If I'd have been in my human form I'd have smiled indulgently. In many ways Seth was the most puppy-like of us all. Relentlessly curious and enthusiastic, he stuck his nose into everything.

"Anybody would think that you got a buzz from killing vampires?" Quil directed his thoughts to Seth and Seth looked up from what he was sniffing.

"I kinda feel I did my job tonight. It's been a while, you know? It felt good to get some action." Seth replied in thought.

"I know what you mean." Added Embry. "No offence Jake." He added. "By the way, are you cooking breakfast?"

It was true, we did have an odd situation on our hands here, but that was nothing compared to the demands on our stomachs after a hunt. "Sure am!" I answered.

"Do you mind if I stay?" Asked Leah. "It would be good to hang out for a little longer. It's been nice to get away from the tantrums and the diapers for a while."

"Sure, there's plenty of food." I replied.

Leah had changed out of all recognition from the angry young woman she'd been just two years ago; laid low by a string of unsuccessful relationships and problems with alcohol. But in Greg Adams she'd found a guy who was willing to work at it and who didn't give up on her when others had. He'd stuck around and waited for her when she'd needed time to get sober. Slowly, in the months after Harriet's birth, they'd pulled it together and made a go of their lives together. Leah had found love and someone who erased the pain of losing Sam to Emily. She'd turned her life around, married Greg and with him they were raising their young family.

Tonight though had reminded me of how much I'd missed Leah's other qualities. She'd been the supreme tactician, driving the vampire astutely into the pack's clutches. It made me remember why she'd been my second in the first place. Seth was great, but Leah planned and thought ahead in a way that her brother never would.

Just then, Seth, who was around seventy five yards ahead of us, stopped dead. His nose investigated the ground and we heard his thoughts acknowledge that he had picked up the scent of a decomposing human. He started to scratch at the ground and the rest of us quickened our pace to join him. All of us started to dig, using our claws to scrape away the earth. Embry phased back and as we excavated, he gently lifted the body from the ground. It was starting to putrefy and I estimated it had been there two weeks, maximum. It had been well covered though; this was someone who had done a good job of hiding a body. It was a woman and from what I could see from the style of her clothing, a young one – late teens, early twenties. Embry laid her down on her back and her head fell to the side, exposing how she had died. There, on her neck, was the unmistakeable mark of teeth sunk in either side of her carotid artery. Death by vampire.

In an instant our heads were buzzing. Nobody had been reported missing in the park that we hadn't successfully accounted for and tonight was the first night that we'd had contact with any non-Cullen vampire for considerable time. The direction in which this pointed was a very uncomfortable one and I phased back to break the link before I heard too much speculation. That was the cue for everyone else to phase back. They all looked at the body of the woman, but I noted the surreptitious glances at me. It was understandable.

"Jake?" Ventured Leah.

"I know." I responded, slightly too tersely. "Sorry Leah." I added.

"Edward hasn't said anything?" She continued.

"No."

"It could be him." Ventured Quil.

"I would stake my life on it not being Edward." Said Seth vehemently.

"You're probably right." Quil said. "I'd find it hard to believe that he could do this. His restraint is admirable."

"But he would also be the first one to acknowledge that restraint is not always easy," countered Leah. "There is always the chance that one of them could lapse and it looks like one of them has."

"If we're discounting Edward, then that leaves Bella, Daniel… or Ness." Quil said the last name with a heavy heart. "Sorry Jake."

"No, you're right. She can't be ruled out." I replied.

"I think it's unlikely to be her." Seth replied. "She'd be in range of Edward's head here. If she'd killed someone he'd know about it. Could it be a vampire that we missed? One that was just passing through?"

"The chances of that are remote." Leah replied. "The two packs are on permanent rotation. No, as uncomfortable as it is, the finger points to the Cullens. For my money I think Daniel. He's new to this, he's the one who lives closest to this point, he'll be the most proficient at disposing of human kill and he's the one we know the least about."

"But he would be unable to hide his thoughts from Edward." Said Seth.

"Yeah, I agree. Something like this is bound to play on a vampire's mind. What about Bella?" Said Embry. "Edward can't hear her thoughts. She could have done this without him knowing."

I looked away from the rest of them. What I had managed to successfully hide was my knowledge that Bella was struggling with her thirst, ever since last summer; when she'd been the one to rescue Stephanie from the clutches of a vampire on our trip to Italy. Bella had sucked the venom out of the bite and the difference between animal blood and human blood had been brought shockingly home to her. If the finger pointed anywhere it was at Bella and I feared that her husband would agree. But I didn't want to discuss this until I'd spoken to Edward.

"We need to alert Charlie." Embry continued.

"Huh? Not today." Leah snapped. "I think he'd be a little pissed if we gave him a murder case on the morning of his wedding."

"Todd then, or Ryan?"

"As they're not looking for anyone right now," I said. "This can wait until Monday. By then, I hope I'll have managed to have had a difficult conversation with Edward. I think we should start there before we give this one to the Police. Until then, we should re-bury her."

"Agreed." Said Seth instantly.

I looked at Quil, he nodded. Embry did too. I turned to Leah.

"Yes. You need to go talk to Edward." She replied. "And good luck with that."

"Thanks. I'll need it."

Dawn was breaking as I pushed open my front door and we all piled in to the kitchen. The euphoric mood we'd set off home with was gone now, replaced by an unexpected set of worries. As I pulled food out of the refrigerator, I noticed, with a tinge of sadness, that a lot of what had been in there last night was missing. I flipped open the bin and found the empty wrappers and cartons in there. I was thankful that she'd made no attempt to hide it this time; but a stab of pain lanced through me and I had to work to keep it from showing on my face. I set about loading the skillet with bacon and felt a hand on my back.

"You OK?" Asked Leah.

"Yeah." I replied brightly. Too brightly.

"That's a lie Jake." She said softly. "You can't hide it from us, you know that." Behind us, the chatter from Seth, Embry and Quil ceased. Leah went to the bin and opened it. "She's bingeing again?"

I nodded. "I really don't know what to do. Neither do Edward or Bella. It's hard to see her in so much pain and to be powerless to do anything about it. It would make it easier if she'd give some indication of which way she wants to go. But Edward says she doesn't even know that herself. He can't be around her that often now. It's causing him pain to be in the vicinity of her head."

"It's causing us pain to be in the vicinity of your head."

"Quil!" Leah remonstrated. "That was not subtle."

"I'm just speaking the truth." Quil held up his hands.

"I know," replied Leah. "But there's a way to say these things."

Quil sighed. "I'm sorry Jake that was tactless of me. But you know we'll do anything to help. We know how much this is hurting you both."

"Thanks. I don't need anything, but please be Ness's friend right now. I think that's all anyone can do. Just support her through this. Anyhow," I said, anxious to move the subject away from my marital difficulties. "Breakfast is ready."

All conversation ceased as the five of us cleared our plates. I made more coffee and we analysed last night and our discovery this morning. The trespassing vampire had been predictably blasé about his chances with us, right up until the moment that Quil ripped off his head. It was the first non-Cullen vampire we'd seen in a long time and as it was our job to protect humans from vampire attacks, it was understandable that we were all a little pumped by this. It was a pity though, that evidence of our success at that, had been followed by evidence of our failure at the very same thing. This latest discovery was going to be a difficult one for us as a pack to face and especially for me.

In the past, we'd made the simple distinction between vampire and human. These days, our patrols concentrated on hunting down red-eyed vampires, those who hunted humans. Those vampires with gold eyes - those who drank only animal blood - were usually vampires that I counted as family. It was a distinction that up until now had been clearly defined. The Cullens were supposed to be the good guys. The Quileutes had made a treaty with them because they'd said they were the good guys. We'd torn that treaty up because they'd demonstrated for over sixty years that they were the good guys. And now? Now I didn't know what to think.

The Cullen family was much larger now than it had originally been when I'd first phased nine years ago. It was now split into two groups. In Dawson City up in the Yukon, were Carlisle and Esmé; with their two adopted 'children' Dan and Jane. Dan had been a friend of Ness's at school and, despite Ness's best efforts to keep them apart, had fallen in love with Jane; a vampire who had left the Volturi when she discovered that there was more to life than being ordered around by Aro. After a time living a split life, the Cullens had masterminded Dan's exit from Forks last November. He'd gotten a job and moved to Seattle, much to his parents' delight. He'd spent several months being severely depressed after the death of his twin sister, Jess. That's what his parents thought anyway, but it was nothing of the sort. Unbeknown to Mr and Mrs Taylor, Dan had married Jane; but an incident just a couple of months later made her abandon him and he was devastated by that. Thankfully, they reconciled last summer and plans were put in place to remove Dan from human society so he could be with his wife permanently. Dan appeared to have tragically drowned in Puget Sound, when he got stoned and fell overboard from a boat chartered for a party. His body had never been found.

While his parents Susie and Brian mourned the loss of their second child; Dan had been spirited almost 2000 miles north and had enrolled at the High School in Dawson City under the name of Dan Cullen, accompanied by his younger adopted 'sister' Jane - in reality his 1200 year old vampire wife who had been frozen in time at the age of fourteen. Also in Dawson City were Rosalie and Emmett using Emmett's original last name of McCarty. They were the new owners of the car repair shop and proud parents to baby Sophie. The newcomers to the town had become good friends with fellow newcomers Dr Cullen and his family and Jane became a frequent babysitter for them. That was the public face of a more complex situation.

Dan and Jane were Sophie's adopted parents. Dan had discovered Sophie's mother last summer in Italy in the middle of giving birth to her. He'd felt unable to walk away and had ended up delivering the baby girl. Sophie's Mom had died immediately after and Dan, perhaps unwisely, had decided that he should be the one to care for the orphaned baby. Amazingly, for a family of vampires fixed in time, the Cullens were remarkably flexible and baby Sophie was quickly part of the family. And Jane, who had run from her husband when she thought she wasn't good enough for him, had taken to motherhood with aplomb. They were doing the best they could within the strange set up. Sophie mainly living with Rose and Emmett was in preparation for something else that wasn't too far away now. Dan would shortly be leaving his human life and becoming the Cullen's newest vampire. When that happened, he wouldn't be able to be around his daughter.

In a house, a few miles away from Dawson City, lived the other members of the Cullen family: Jasper and Alice, Will and Jess and their son Ben. Jess had been a vampire for sixteen months now and her eyes had cooled to the familiar gold that marked out the different lifestyle of the Cullens.

Here; the house just north of Forks that had been the Cullens' home for over a decade had been sold earlier in the year. A new family lived there now, oblivious to its history. The good people of Forks however, had lost no time in telling Mr and Mrs Kennedy, about the reclusive nature of the previous owners. We kept an eye on the place, just in case anyone hadn't received the change of address card.

The family base was now mine and Ness's house that was set deep in the forest on the edge of the reservation at La Push. 'The Lodge' was its official name, but 'Switzerland' was the unofficial name that it went by most of the time. It was a nod back to a time when Bella was the one who was the neutral territory between Edward and myself.

Ordinarily it was just Ness and I that lived here and to many, the twelve-bedroom house may seem ridiculously large for two people. But most people didn't know that it needed to be big enough to play host to an entire dynasty of vampires and cater for their needs. Not only did we have twelve bedrooms, but we had a fully equipped medical room and a state of the art facility that meant that the vampires could keep one step ahead of society and themselves secretly embedded in it. Edward had oversight of all the Cullen's business dealings and all the documentation relating to that was here too. But Edward and Bella didn't live here; they still lived in their little cottage deep in the forest. Charlie was still in his house in Forks, although not for very much longer. After the wedding today he would be moving across town into Heather's house, swapping places with Kael.

Next door to Charlie lived Stephanie Chambers; a Forks High School teacher who was on the radar of a significant percentage of the female population of Forks, and not for good reasons. There had been much sadness in Forks when the gorgeous Dr Carlisle Cullen had left the hospital several years ago; so a lot of them were thrilled to discover that he would be attending our wedding. The church had been packed out and had almost spontaneously combusted with excitement when Dr Cullen brought with him his equally gorgeous and wonderfully unattached cousin. Daniel Cullen was the biggest attraction at our public wedding, not us. Ness had spent the afternoon almost weeping with laughter, as women fell over themselves to ingratiate themselves with her adopted brother. Edward too had walked around with a permanent smirk on his face, shaking his head in amusement at the thoughts of women who really should have known better. Daniel, a vampire rescued from a San Francisco coven, was oblivious to it all. He'd been 'introduced' early on in the afternoon to Stephanie and had happily chatted to her despite the best efforts of every other woman to engage him in conversation. That he was now living with Stephanie was a source of great ire. But nothing was what it seemed. Stephanie and Daniel were a couple long before they'd even set foot in the church that day and hopefully by the end of the summer, they'd be a family.

Charlie and Heather's wedding today was to be a small affair; with only as many guests as could comfortably fit into Heather's back yard for the reception. The weather wasn't going to be perfect; but it had been perfectly chosen as dry but sufficiently overcast to allow Daniel, Edward and Bella to attend without needing to hide indoors. In another bizarre twist to life in our family, Heather would be given away by Kael, who was masquerading as her seventeen year old nephew. In reality, he was Heather's father. Exactly how old Kael was, none of us wanted to think about, or ask him for that matter. But he was indistinguishable from any other teen his age. He wasn't a vampire, he was an angel. He too had been offered the chance to belong to the flexible-on-species Cullen family and he'd taken it. Kael had spent the last year in school and counted it amongst the strangest things that he had ever done. Not strange enough though to put him off going back, because he was returning for his Senior year in September. However, that might be partly due to Jo-Jo; who had no idea that she was dating an angel, she just thought Kael Scott looked like one. Heather approved of her father's choice of girlfriend and had even invited Jo-Jo to the wedding. But Kael would never tell Jo-Jo what he was. He had only ever disclosed that to a handful of people and Jo-Jo wouldn't be one of them. It was very much a casual thing for him. There was no future for them without questions Kael didn't want to answer. He had always had that policy, until last summer; when quite by accident, he'd stumbled across his daughter Heather living in a part of the country that he never expected her to be in. He realised that she was surrounded by people who didn't age either and those that did, didn't really care about it. For the first time in thousands of years, he could experience a family and be around non-angels that he didn't need to hide things from. He could be who he was and he was enjoying that.

Daniel, Edward, Kael and myself had taken to spending time shooting baskets with Charlie in his back yard. A human, two vampires, an angel and a shape-shifter. On the face of it, just five guys hanging out together; but each of us had something to hide from the outside world. Although, Kael's hidden assets turned out to give him an unfair advantage in basketball.

"Hey, put the wings away!" Charlie grumbled, as Kael executed a swooping dive from the roof of the house.

I chuckled to myself at the memory. Those had been great evenings and I hoped we could do more of them. Then the reality of this morning's discovery crashed right through it and my happy mood evaporated even further when a pale, dishevelled, bath-robed figure appeared in the doorway of the kitchen. The chatter amongst the guys instantly died away.

"Good Morning Ness." Quil said, brightly. "Big day for your Grampa, huh?" She nodded and the tiniest of smiles graced her face for a moment. "We should be going." He added, voicing what everyone else was probably thinking. "Thanks for breakfast Jake."

"You're welcome." There was much back slapping as they left, but Leah hung back for a moment and went over to Ness.

"Come over if you want to talk," Leah said to her. "Anytime." She ran a soothing hand down Ness's arm and Ness gave a nod. Leah followed the rest of the guys out of the front door and closed it softly behind her.

I looked at my wife; she looked even more like a ghost this morning. "I hope we didn't wake you? Can I get you something? There's coffee and even some bacon left over."

Ness shook her head. "I'm not hungry." That was unsurprising, given what she'd put away last night. "I'll just have coffee." She added.

I poured her a cup and set it down in front of her as she perched on one of the stools across the counter from me. "Did you sleep well?" I asked.

"Yes thanks."

Silence descended between us as Ness sipped her coffee. Time was when she'd have chattered on about anything and everything. That was all gone now. In its place were only platitudes, delivered with a formality that suggested we were strangers to one another. I'd known Ness for almost every second of her life and loved her for every one of those. I'd never stop loving her but I'd never felt further away from her than I did right now, simply standing on the other side of the kitchen counter.

This was how it had been for months; conversation never extending beyond the superficial, merely establishing that the other person was alive. We couldn't talk without talking about it and Ness never wanted to talk about it. It was the same old same old and there were only so many times that I could say the same thing, without wanting to bash my head against a wall, or rip my heart out to make the pain stop.

How different things had been just eight short months ago at our wedding. We hadn't left the house on Isle Esmé for the entire three weeks we'd been there. We'd had the island to ourselves but had never moved much beyond the triangle of the bedroom, the bathroom and the kitchen. When we got back, we didn't much leave our bedroom either and there was the root of the problem: Nothing happened. Well, lots of things happened, again and again. But what you'd expect to happen from that much lovemaking, didn't. Christmas came and went; spring did too and now it was midsummer. Month after month Ness's period resolutely showed up, taunting us with the painful reality that Ness wasn't getting pregnant and it hadn't been from lack of trying.

Her depression had set in around the end of March. At first it was tears and the feeling of being trapped between two species. She wasn't vampire enough to have no reproductive system; that she could have accepted. Or human enough to have one that worked properly. Later, the tears of sadness gave way to tears of rage, as she kicked against what she was; literally sometimes. I'd come home from work one day to find several foot-shaped holes in the house. Bella and Edward tried to do everything they could to help. Bella sat and listened to her for hours and Edward disappeared off into the medical room to try and find a solution, reading and analyzing everything he could get his hands on. But short of ripping his own daughter apart, with who knew what consequences, Edward couldn't use any method used by human fertility specialists to treat Ness.

It had been something that had troubled us from the moment it had happened and now Edward suspected that our fears were grounded in truth. It seemed that the bite she'd sustained from Brad in Denali - the one where Edward hadn't managed to get to her in time - had knocked out her ability to conceive. Edward told Ness what he suspected and for a while she seemed to accept it and the tears stopped. Then the drinking and the eating started, bringing with it a dead-eyed Ness; who also didn't see the point in making love anymore if there was nothing to be gained from it. The fact that we'd done it before we ever started trying for a family, simply because we loved each other; escaped her.

Edward, Bella and I had already started thinking around the problem, considering adoption or even buying babies. But Ness would not, or could not think about that. She refused to believe that she would never have her own children, clinging to the comment made by one of Jess's friends, Fiona, who told Ness that she'd have four children. Ness seemed to have forgotten that in that same conversation, Fiona had predicted that Dan would have two children. As Dan's wife was a vampire, this was impossible and it had turned out to be non-biological children for them. Sophie had landed in Dan's hands in Italy last summer and they'd just celebrated her first birthday. They had been assured that another child would come their way too. Edward, Bella and myself were convinced that that's how it was going to have to be for Ness and me and we wished that Ness could see it like that.

"You should go see Leah," I said, breaking the silence. "You might find it helpful."

Ness slowly raised her eyes to me. "I think I'd rather braid my own intestines than speak to her." She said in a flat monotone.

"Ness, she's only trying to help."

Finally, there was a spark in her eyes, a spark of anger. "What? You think I should go talk to Mrs Happily Married with Two Fabulous Kids? Isn't that rubbing my nose in my own deficiencies? Have you forgotten what she did to me on my sixth birthday?" He voice was raised now.

"Ness that was years ago. And yes, you should talk to Leah. She's been in pain too, as you know. She also resorted to blocking it out with alcohol, just as you're doing."

"I'm not blocking it out! I like a drink occasionally. I don't have a problem with it."

"Ness," I said more gently. "To the outside world you're nineteen. People assume I buy that Vodka for me. But even I'm having to shop around to hide how much you're drinking. Please let me help you."

"What? Are you going to fix me up with an AA meeting?"

"No. I'm just hoping that you'll give thought to the other options."

She got up. "I'm not talking about this shit again. There are no other options!" She yelled. "It's my babies or no babies and Mother Nature already made that choice for me. Some fucking choice! It's exactly like it was when I felt trapped by this imprinting thing. Everyone else had decided how my life would be and who I would end up with, without consulting me. You and Mom and Dad are doing that to me again. Stop it Jake, I hate it!" She stormed out of the kitchen and then stomped back again. "Oh, I forgot to tell you." She held the back of her wrist to her forehead as if her head was hurting. "Jane called last night. Dan's conversion's underway."

"That's great." I said trying to rescue the conversation back from the dark place it had descended to. "Did she manage to do it?"

Ness shook her head. "No, they went with the syringe in the end."

"That's good. Thanks for telling me."

"Yeah." Ness's face settled back into its familiar dead look. She turned to go.

"Ness?"

She half turned back. "What?"

"I love you."

"Yeah, whatever. I'm going to have a bath." She went off upstairs.

Every fibre of me wanted to run after her and hold her, but I knew that it would make things a whole lot worse. She didn't want to be close to me right now, she didn't want to be close to anyone. She held the world at arms' length and in her opinion; the less she engaged with it the better. But I'd be there for her whenever she needed me and whatever she needed me to do. In the meantime, I'd re-stock the refrigerator and buy her more vodka.