Chapter 1: Reunion
I could see the breeze off the Pacific rippling through the trees, so I rolled down my window to take in the cool, salty air. It was good to be back. Back to a place where my dark skin and hair were the norm, not an oddity. A place where Ateara wasn't a strange last name and where, with any luck, I could start over and forget all about the last few months.
LaPush was home, always had been. Sure, I would miss Denver with its bright lights and bustling city streets, but LaPush was where I'd grown up, where I'd made my first, and best, friends. LaPush was where I belonged.
It had taken a long hard battle to get here. Two weeks in the hospital recouping from the accident that killed my mom. The accident that I should have died in. Two weeks spent missing her and dreading the day that I would be sent home to live with my deadbeat dad.
Living with Dad would have been heck, to put it mildly. He had never been around, and when I was forced to spend time with him, he treated me like his personal slave. So, I called Mom's dad, Grandpa Quil, to take me home to live with him. After a three month long custody battle, the judge decided that, at sixteen, I was old enough to decide where I wanted to live.
So here I was, pulling into my Grandfather's driveway, my shiny Ford a standout between Grandpa's old car and my cousin Quil's dusty pickup. I parked the car and got out. Quil ran outside and grabbed me into a big bear hug.
"Megan! I missed you cuz!" he yelled.
"Missed you too Quil," I choked out, gasping for breath.
Quil just laughed. "Grandpa's not here, but he said you can go ahead and put your stuff in your room. Here, I'll help." Quil grabbed my heavy boxes and sprinted into the house and up the stairs.
I grabbed a box and slowly walked into a house I knew well. To my left was a single door that led into my grandfather's room, and to my right, an archway led into the living room and kitchen. I walked straight up the stairs, only to be met halfway by Quil.
"I'll get the rest," he told me, bounding down the stairs. I wondered when he'd gotten so strong, and tall too! He must have been 6'2 or 6'3!
I was interrupted from my thoughts by Quil saying, "You can unpack your stuff later. C'mon, we're meeting everyone at Emily's".
"Wait, Emily Young?"
"Yea, but she looks a little… well, different. She was mauled by a bear about a year or so back."
"Omigosh that's terrible!"
"Yeah but don't stare, Sam hates it,"
"Sam as in Leah's Sam?"
"He's Emily's Sam now but yeah. C'mon Megs lets go."
We drove to Emily's in virtual silence. Four shirtless, tanned boys and three beautiful girls came out of the house as soon as they heard the engine.
Three of the boys crowded around me. Jared, Jake, and Paul each gave me a huge hug, picking me up and swinging me around in the process. The three of them had always been like older brothers to me, so I put up with the good-natured taunts of "little sis". They, like Quil, had done a little growing up in the past two years. When had my "big brothers" gotten quite so big?
I walked up the stairs onto the porch. Quil was right, Emily's scars were terrible, but she was still Emily. I gave her a big hug and smiled at Sam, who was standing next to her.
The girl on Emily's other side was unfamiliar.
"Hi I'm Kim," she said. "I'm Jared's…girlfriend"
I caught the pause but said nothing. "Nice to meet you, I'm Quil's cousin Megan", I said, hugging her.
I stepped back from Kim and looked over at a glaring Leah Clearwater. Oh joy seemed as though nothing had changed between us while I was gone.
Ever since I came home the summer I was fourteen, Leah had hated me, and I had absolutely no idea why. The boys told me not to worry about it, that Leah hated everyone, but still it unnerved me a bit. I felt genuinely sorry for Leah, since I'd heard of her Dad's passing, but since she obviously still despised me, I refrained from offering my sympathy.
Emily broke our staring contest of sorts by ushering us all inside the house. As I sat on the comfortable couch between Quil and Jake, I realized that someone was missing.
Embry Call had been my best friend for as long as I could remember. He was the youngest of the group of boys that I grew up with, and always defended me when the older guys were mean. He stuck up for me and before long we were inseparable. Even though we lived hundreds of miles apart, I was still closer to Embry than anyone else on the planet. We used to call or text each other all the time, but over the past few months, he'd grown strangely distant, and I hadn't heard from him since about a month after the accident.
Now he didn't even care enough to come see me when I moved home? That was like a punch in the chest, and I felt myself tearing up as I asked, "Where's Embry?"
"Late, as usual," Paul crowed from the chair opposite us.
Quil saw that I was upset, and reassured me with a " Don't worry Megs, he's coming."
Just then, the door opened and slammed shut, and Embry's voice came floating in from the entryway.
"Sorry guys, Mom was chewing me out, again"
"It's alright Embry," Sam said, but in a voice that made me think that Sam was going to chew him out later. But why would Sam do that? Why did Sam have any right to do that? I wasn't quite sure.
"Hey is Megs here yet?" Embry asked.
"Right here," I called out.
"Hey, how are ya? Glad to be home?"
Before I could answer, he bounded around the corner and into the living room with a "I mis-"; he froze, stopping mid-sentence to stare at me, a dumbfounded expression on his face.
Then everything happened so quickly I didn't really have time to comprehend it. Paul and Jared grabbed Embry and tried to haul him out the back door. He struggled, letting out what sounded almost like a growl, and began to shake uncontrollably.
"Get her out of here NOW!" Sam yelled to Quil and Jake as he helped Jared and Paul drag a still shaking Embry outside.
Apparently neither Quil nor Jake has good judgment in bad situations, because did they put me in the truck and take me home? No they each grabbed one of my arms and hauled me about a mile into the woods.
They sat me on a flat rock in the middle of an unfamiliar clearing and told me "Don't move," before running off into the woods, leaving me completely alone and wondering what the heck just happened.