Full Moon, Chapter 2

Deciding that nothing was wrong with me; for all we knew, the plate had just slipped out of my hand, Jake left me to fix dinner while he finished with the wood. I puzzled over what had just happened. I had noticed almost feeling like someone was trying to get inside my head when the plate was thrown, something like a sinus headache, but I passed it off as paranoia. I highly doubted that there was a vampire or other mythical being that could control minds, or had even been able to find me.

Ok, maybe there was a vampire who had control over the mind, but what would they want with me?

I cleaned up the shards of the ivory plate and threw them in the trash. Thankfully I hadn't thrown it hard enough to dent the wall or the wallpaper.

I pulled a package of venison steaks out of the fridge and set them on a cutting board before stoking the fire in the stove. I let it heat up while I tended to the steaks. They had started leaking blood and it smelled delicious, however I resisted the urge to drink it. Old blood tasted terrible.

Jake strode back into the house with a tall stack of split wood in his arms. "Hey Ness." He greeted happily while stacking the wood by the fireplace.

I meant to smile and reply, "hey, dinner will be ready soon." but what actually came out of my mouth shocked me, and I suddenly felt that same stuffiness from when I threw the plate. "What are you doing in here?" my mouth snapped. Inside of me I was completely and utterly confused as to why I would say that.

Jacob was taken aback and had a half startled half puzzled look in his eyes when they met mine. "What?"

The foggy feeling left my head and I was able to say what I wanted my mouth to. "Um... I don't know why I said that. I was going to say, 'Hey, dinner will be ready soon'. I'm sorry I snapped at you."

"It's ok, Ness." he told me, and I smiled at him. He helped me finish the steaks and popped them under the broiler while I scrubbed the blood away. The smell of it would make me want to hunt, even though I had hunted yesterday.

I set the table while Jake took the steaks out after just a few minutes of cooking. They were extra rare and seasoned to perfection. I knew that if I had grabbed them, I would have eaten mine before it reached the table, and possibly his too for that matter. I remembered when we still lived in Forks and I would visit my grandfather while I was still growing up. I loved it when he would grill steaks. He was probably more pleased with that than I was, since that was all the he really cooked himself. He had been a bit of a lousy cook, but Sue was with him, and she cooked so that he wouldn't starve.

I wondered how they were doing and if they missed us at all. Even now I could hardly imagine how it must have hit him after his fishing trip to find all of us gone off the face of the planet. He knew about the werewolves, since Jake had unceremoniously phased in front of him, but as far as vampires went he was clueless. My family had wanted to keep it that way so we wouldn't be forced to change him.

I held onto the plates securely as I walked to the table so that I wouldn't throw one again, and I kept alert for that foggy head feeling that seemed to develop when I started acting weird.

After dinner I came down quickly with a true headache and ran a bath to try and calm it. I sank into the tub and melted into the hot water, bubbles concealing everything below my shoulders. My headache began to subside and I simply relaxed until Jake walked into the bathroom with the cup of tea that I had requested. Chamomile tea settled my stomach, which had grown upset after dinner, and made me drowsy, prompting Jake to fetch my nightgown from our room.

I stepped gingerly out of the bath and dried off. Wrapped in a towel, I brushed out my hair a few times, the wet bronze curls springing back into shape as they dried.

My routine over with and the sky darkened to a deep blue with just a hint of purple in the east, I decided against collapsing into a chair in the living room and opted for lying on the bed with my head in Jake's lap. I felt my headache coming back. "Jake?" I whispered sleepily, turning to look into his face.

"Yes, Renesmee?"

"Could you brush my hair for a little while? I'm getting a headache again." I explained.

I would have normally just showed him what I wanted, but I was thinking things over in my head and I didn't want to accidentally show them to him. I knew that imprinting mode would kick in and he would be doing anything to alleviate it. The imprinting bond was nice, but it did sometimes get a little bit annoying.

He grabbed my hairbrush off of my nightstand; I had brought it with me from the bathroom because I usually brushed it first thing, and ran it through my damp curls. I sighed and closed my eyes. The hair brushing soothed my headache more absolutely than the bath had and it gave me ample time to think.

What was happening to me? For all of my life until today I had always been in control of my body, but now I was growing afraid to do anything, or say anything. I now had my guard up, bracing myself to feel the fogginess and say things that I never would otherwise. I sincerely hoped that it wasn't a gifted vampire trying to get into my head. I'd though that Jake and I would be safe here forever, almost completely cut off from the outside world, but now I began to worry that we weren't so safe anymore.

Maybe you are just paranoid like always, I told myself, no one can find you here. I let myself absorb the wise teachings of my conscience and my paranoia subsided by some degree.

Jake sensed the tension ebb and stopped brushing my hair. I didn't mind. He wrapped his strong arms around me and I quickly fell asleep in his warm embrace.

I was in our meadow on our property with Jake. He was laying on his side in the soft grass with his head propped up by one arm. We were shaded by the tall pines that skirted the meadow and concealed it from prying eyes. In the sunlit half of the meadow, shafts of glittering sunlight shot from the sky and shone on the stunning flowers the shifted their faces to see the shinning sun. I was tempted to lay in one of those bright sunbeams, but I had Jacob, and he was all that I needed to be warm. I did wonder how my skin would glow if I did walk into a sunbeam. I knew that my parents would sparkle like a crystal if they were here.

I was laying on my stomach with my legs stirring the air and I was reading Persuasion out loud to Jake. I loved the book, having read it three times already, and Jake was content to listen to it while he kept an eye out for any sign of danger. I had no doubt that he would fight, or run with me, but our meadow was so secluded and perfect that I didn't worry.

However, I had my guard down for too long. He suddenly looked to the east. He leaped up, his tattered clothes flying off of him as he transformed into a giant russet wolf, making sure that I wasn't hurt, and stood tall, pointing his nose to the east edge of the meadow, opposite where we had been. He bristled and bared his teeth at the unseen enemy.

Imprinted mode kicked in for me and I sprang up and hugged his neck instinctively, dropping my book in the process. I didn't worry about it. I buried my head in Jake's thick,shaggy fur, knowing that he would protect me with his life.

The meadow shifted in a dizzying array of swirling colors. I closed my eyes to keep from growing nauseous. When I opened them again, I had to take a double take. I was suddenly a little girl again, dressed in what Alice had picked out the day I first saw Irina. I hugged Jake's furry leg in a meadow surrounded by tall, sharp pines and foreboding crags, while snow fell gingerly to the ground without a care in the world as it danced in the air. My mother, dressed in the leather and black I had always seen her in, called out to Irina who stood silhouetted against the sky on a hill in the distance.

Irina looked at Jacob and I with her golden eyes, and then we were all back in the meadow.

Everyone, except mother, she had disappeared in the mist that sent us back to our meadow.

Jake bared his teeth at Irina as she stood opposite us in the trees beyond the meadow. I assumed that she was who he had heard in the forest.

I heard a slight rustle in the trees, that a human would have thought to be a small animal scurrying along the forest floor. I knew better, and my ears and nose told me that it was another vampire.

Sure enough, another vampire soon joined Irina. He had dark skin, long dark brown or black dreadlocks; it was hard to tell conclusively since he was in the shade, and crimson eyes that bore into me. I presumed him to be Laurent, Irina's late mate, based on how my parents had once described him.

They stood at the edge of the meadow, hand in hand, but their faces held scowls of fury and hatred, instead of smiles of friendship.

They walked forward and Jacob growled at them when they were thirty feet from me. They halted their advance. We could both clearly see the two vampires change as they were shrouded in a thick, swirling gray mist. Irina's face and clothes morphed a thousand times, too fast for even my eyes to follow, but Laurent morphed slowly and only once into the vampire that Jacob had killed as we escaped the battle.

The vampire we killed burst into flame. I shielded my eyes in Jacob's fur when the flesh on the dark skinned vampire burned and fell away, revealing his skull and bones, his eyes still glowing red. He then fell to the ground as a pile of ashes, but Irina never caught.

Still shifting, she shouted in one thousand voices, "You will pay!", before she sprinted and lunged for Jacob.

I screamed and shot up out of bed, my heart pounding like helicopter blades and my eyes wild. Jake instantly sat up in alarm and hugged me close, forcing my head to his chest and stroking my long hair comfortingly.. "Hey, Hey." He murmured frantically.

"They... they were going to kill you!" I stammered. I soon realized that it was only a nightmare.

"It was only a dream Renesmee. It's ok. I'm here." He breathed softly, holding me tight. I calmed down in his arms.

"Go back to sleep, I'll be right here." I snuggled closer to him, and soon fell to sleep again, dreaming of being with my parents and Jake when I was a little girl.

Jake was in the kitchen when I awoke, polishing off a plate of eggs. I stood up stiffly and glided into the kitchen where Jake had a plate of eggs on the table for me. Had I been younger, I might have wrinkled my nose. I would still take blood over human food if I had the choice, but I wasn't as put off by human food as I had been. I'd gotten used to it.

"I was wondering when you would be getting up." He chuckled. I considered answering him, but I hesitated, not knowing what might spew from my mouth if the fogginess came back, so I smiled weakly. His face fell, obviously disappointed.

I ate silently, and before I was half finished, he had his plate in the sink and he was out the door. I felt him phase. He was clearly angry, but I couldn't fathom why until I thought about.

He didn't have the mind link with me that he had had with his pack once upon a time, and I hadn't shown him what I had been thinking last night, but he seemed to know in any case that something was up. I hoped that he wasn't fretting over something that he couldn't control, but that seemed unlikely.

I had a very strong suspicion that some vampire was trying to get inside my head, so I tried to block it; put a wall in a sense around my mind, but I didn't have my mother's shield. I was positive that she wouldn't be feeling like her mind was being wrested from her. Oh I wished that she was still here. I would give up almost anything to see her again. Wetness streaked down my cheek, and I realized that I was crying. If I opened up my locket right now I would be gushing a river in no time.

I sobbed to no one but myself. "Oh mom. I miss you. I miss you so much."