DISCLAIMER: I am not Stephenie Meyer. I do not own anything you recognize.
Chapter One: Fever
Pretty much everyone in La Push had figured it out. The Council of Elders denied it, of course, but the Quileute legends were the first stories told to kids, and there were too many coincidences. I lived clear on the other side of the rez, but we'd heard, too; whispers about Sam, the tribe's outsider, suddenly being popular, even revered, by a bunch of the guys. Those guys having sudden growth spurts. Those guys disappearing for days at a time. One of them got checked into the hospital with fatal injuries and walked out the next day without so much as a bruise.
It wasn't hard to jump to the conclusion.
"Did you hear?" Alia whispered in my ear on the way to homeroom. "Collin joined them. Collin. He's 13."
"That was over a week ago," Sheyenne corrected. "God, Ali, keep up."
"Play nice, girls," I interjected absentmindedly. I had a headache and didn't really feel like dealing with the bickering.
"Yeah," said a deep voice behind me. "Play nice or the werewolves might get you."
Sheyenne and Alia groaned, I smiled and turned around to hug Logan. He took an extra second in the hug to breathe in the smell of my hair, as usual, then took my hand and the four of us continued walking.
"Like you don't believe the stories," Sheyenne mocked. "Everyone knows what's happening."
"Do they? Because it sure sounds like a bunch of bedtime stories to me."
"There are, like, a lot of them now," Alia said. "That's a pack, Logan."
"A pack of guys who are confused, gullible, and probably smoking more than they should be. What's wrong, Mia?"
I'd been walking progressively slower, and stopped. I was leaning heavily on Logan, but couldn't seem to get my balance.
"Not sure." Ok, out of breath, too. "I'm dizzy. I mean, I'm fine."
I tried to walk again and stumbled over my own feet. Logan caught me.
"No lying, Mia," he chided gently, a semi-pointed reminder about our talk the previous night. We'd agreed that we needed to be more honest with each other if our relationship was going to go any further. It hadn't been a fun conversation.
"I'm not lying," I protested as my vision started blurring. "I'm not."
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I woke up feeling like ten thousand tiny men were building campfires just under my skin.
I was at home. My room. I threw the covers off and jumped to my feet, intending to go downstairs and stick my head in the freezer, but the dizziness returned with a vengeance and I hit the floor before I'd even made it to the doorframe. The resultant thud brought Logan and my younger sister, Abby, running up the stairs. I managed to convince them that I was fine, that I'd just gotten up too fast. Logan put a hand to my forehead and looked concerned, but I promised that it was just a twenty-four hour bug, assured him that I wouldn't go to school tomorrow, and tried to send him home.
"Fine, fine, I'm going, I'm going," he said, holding his hands up in mock surrender as Abby pushed him towards the door by the small of his back.
"You should go," Abby insisted. She grabbed his shirt sleeve and tugged him down until his ear was at her level. "Mia's sick. Me 'n Bailey's gonna take care of her."
I watched the exchange continue from the couch. Logan was great with her, and with Bailey, our brother, but I sometimes worried that they didn't exactly know what role he played in their lives. Things were a little…complicated for us.
Two years ago, our parents and older brother, Mark, had gone missing out at sea. Their boat had wrecked itself on the shore the week after, but their bodies were never found. I was fourteen then, and the Child Protective Services had come in, intending to put us in foster homes, but I'd fought tooth and nail until some of the elders from the rez stepped in. Somehow, the whole thing had been swept under the carpet, and now it was just me, sixteen, starting my senior year in high school, with Bailey, nine and proud to be the best player on his rec league soccer team, and Abby, five and bossy.
I'd been a complete mess when I met Logan a little over a year ago, but he showed up after school one day and things just...clicked. He fit our dynamic perfectly. He was Bailey's cool older guy role model; he was Abby's protector from all things terrifying in the closet and under the bed. I don't want to say that he "saved" us; I don't think things were ever really that, that bad, but it was dicey for awhile and he stopped that.
Of course, it helped that he was very attractive and an excellent kisser.
"I know you will," Logan promised, squatting so that he was face-to-face with her. "But can you do me a favor?"
Abby blushed and stuck a finger in her nose. I groaned quietly. We'd been working on the nose thing.
Logan pulled a few little pieces of paper from his pocket and gave them to Abby. "I want to you put these next to all the phones in the house, okay? See how they're green and have the number four on them? If you or Bailey or Mia need me tonight, all you have to do is pick up the phone, press the number four, and press the green button, and I'll be here in just a few minutes, okay?"
Abby crushed the papers to her stomach and removed her finger from her nose to salute. "Okay, Mr. 'Ogan." L's were still a little sketchy for her. They ranked after the nose-picking issue on my scale of importance.
"Thanks, Abby." Abby immediately ran away to perform her task. Logan met my eyes once more, mouthed "I love you," and left, shutting the door behind him.
The thought didn't pop up until the quiet time between Logan's departure and Bailey's somewhat disastrous attempt to make dinner, when I took my temperature.
106 degrees Fahrenheit.
I'm no doctor, but I'd spent enough time nursing Bailey and Abby back to health to know that with a fever of 106, I should have been unconscious in an ice bath somewhere. Sure, my head was pounding and I felt a little overheated, but…
No. It wasn't possible.
I tried to distract myself. TV was ok, but I didn't watch any shows regularly and wasn't up to filling in blank storylines. Reading was a little better, but the words seemed to swim illogically after a few pages. My thoughts kept jumping back to the legends, running down the list of indicators, checking my symptoms against the signs of what was supposed to be a myth.
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Sometime after dinner, the doorbell rang. As I was still mostly incapacitated—the tiny men had redoubled their efforts—Bailey answered. He yelled a word that I hadn't even known he knew and slammed the door shut. My overprotective big sister instincts kicked in and I sprinted to the door. By the time I got there, he'd opened it again and was apologizing to the half-naked, extremely well developed, extremely attractive man who stood in our doorway.
"I'm sorry," Bailey said. "You look like someone I…someone I used to know."
I knew what he meant. He looked exactly like Mark.
"I'm sorry for startling you," he said. "My name's Sam Uley."
"No way," Bailey breathed. Now it was Sam's turn to look startled. "Sorry," he continued. "It's just…you're Sam Uley. My friends are never going to believe this."
Sam kind of laughed, kind of coughed, then shifted his gaze to me. "I take it you're Harmony?"
"Mia," I whispered. My 15-yard run to the door was starting to feel like a Herculean effort. "No one calls me Harmony."
"Do you mind if we talk for a moment, Mia?"
I shook my head, trying to clear it. All I managed to do was rattle my brain a little more. The room spun despite my desperate clutch on the doorframe. Sam gripped my elbow and something electric shot through my body.
"No, you won't talk to me?" he asked.
"No," I breathed. "No, I mean, yes, I'll talk. Listen. Yes. Can we sit down?"
"Of course." He started to guide me to the couch. "Hey, Bailey, can I talk to Mia in private?"
Bailey, in complete awe of his hero, managed to squeak out a "yes" before running away, probably to call everyone he knew.
Sam got me safely to the couch and sat opposite me. I put my head between my knees until the world settled back to normal gravity.
"I'm sure you've heard the stories by now."
"No, gee, I have no idea what you're talking about."
Sam's face went through a mix of emotions before settling on amused. "Well, you're certainly going to fit in."
"Not a chance, Sam."
His face shifted to confusion. "What?"
"Look, I appreciate the offer. But I've got Abby and Bailey, and I'm all they've got."
Understanding with a hint of hope. "So, it's not that you don't believe me."
"I can't believe you." My head was pounding. "If I believe for half a second that there's a way out of this situation, that I might turn into one of your ridiculous wolf people and not have the responsibility that I have now and then that doesn't happen…one loss too many."
Sam's face cleared. "Look, you don't have to believe me right now. Just come down the cliffs tomorrow night, okay? We're having a bonfire. A bunch of people will be there. Bring Abby and Bailey; there'll be a lot of kids for them to play with."
"No promises. Tomorrow's a school night, and Bailey's got a math test the day after."
"Think about it, Mia," Sam said, standing up and heading for the door. "I'm not in the habit of letting people down."
"I know," I said as he opened the door. "Neither am I."