Chapter 2 - Capricious
Disclaimer: I still am not Stephanie Meyer, the rightful owner of the Twilight Series.
Author´s Notes: One of the reviewers (thank you very much :)) notified me of the little faux-pas with Nessie attending Forks High with her family after only 7 or 8 years passed. Of course people would recognize the rest of the family, so it was completely an error on my part to have them all attend. Sorry for that. You can, if you want to, for now just imagine that Alice´s extraordinary make-up skills made it possible for the Cullens to actually look their age now (mid-twenties), and that they´re all employed at Forks High to keep an eye on the youngest Cullen.
And yes, the pairing really is Renesmee/Leah in a romantical kind of sense.
Rating: T
--
"Ness," I distantly heard familiar voice call me through the fog of sleep. Ignoring it, I fell back into a dreamless quiet.
"Nessie," the voice came more insistently this time. I gave a barely discernable groan in response and willed myself once more deep into the darkness of sleep.
Only a moment more of my unresponsiveness, and I suddenly felt the covers lifted from me and my whole body shook like a magnitude eight earthquake. Eyes snapping open, the image of one very tiny aunt of mine bouncing up and down on my mattress, feet positioned dangerously close to the right and left of my waist, greeted me.
Still barely able to function, mind still clouded with sleep, I muttered exactly what was going on in my mind at that moment.
"Alice," I groaned and sat up on my elbows, "what the fuck are you doing?"
The jumping immediately stopped and she narrowed her eyes at me. "Language, Nessie."
I rolled my eyes at her reprimanding me. Next to Rose and Emmett, she was by far the worst concerning the use of profanities. I still shuddered at times when I thought of Alice´s online order gone wrong from a small Spanish boutique. Apparently, the company that was part of the boutique went bankrupt, but they still sold clothes online that they technically didn´t even have anymore and cashed the money.
In the end, Alice´s wrath and foul mouth didn´t only have us shiver in fear, but also the company. I had no idea what kind of strings Alice had pulled, but a few weeks later the shipment arrived, complete with everything she had ordered, plus a letter of apology.
Nothing and no one could wipe her smug grin off for the next few weeks.
"Did you even hear a word I said, Nessie?"
I broke out of my reverie and looked up at Alice, arms crossed, pout set firmly, and eyes disapproving of my lack of attention.
"Sorry," I smiled up at her, genuinely hoping that she wasn´t too mad at me. "What are you even doing here? It´s not even dawn…"
She sighed in exasperation, and repeated what she probably already had said before. The smile that lit her face after that told me that she had completely forgiven me, though.
"The guys and your parents have gone hunting, and Rose and I wanted to know if you´d like to get some clothes ready for today."
It only took a second for me to notice what felt wrong with the sentence, and with that a short recap of yesterday´s events ran through my mind. Eyes focusing on the woman in front of me again, I cocked my head to the side and briefly debated if Alice had maybe developed a severe case of Alzheimer in the past few hours.
"Thanks for the offer, but I don´t think the principal would appreciate my presence in school after what happened, no matter how good I´ll look today."
"Not for that, stupid," she laughed it off and swatted my arm, her golden eyes sparkling in barely concealed amusement.
Raising my eyebrow, I urged her to explain. "So…?"
"Well," she slowly began, dragging the word out and obviously enjoying the bit of suspense created. "Today there will be a few certain shape-shifters coming back home, and I heard there will be a small welcoming party down at La Push. An invitation was kindly extended to the Cullens, so of course we have to look our best, right?"
I vaguely noted her extending her hand for me to grab, but my mind was too focused on her words to react properly.
`They´re coming back… They´re coming back, holy shit!´
My heart slammed repeatedly against my ribcage, going faster and faster as I pondered that thought. I had completely blocked that little tidbit of their eventual return out of my mind. `How the hell will I--´
"Nessie?" My aunt´s concerned eyes and voice interrupted my train of thought.
"I´m fine," I quickly assured her. "Just thinking, you know?"
Before she could tell me if `she knew´, I had already hopped off my bed and rushed into the bathroom, leaning heavily against the closed door behind me.
`Fuck.´
--
"Aww," Alice and Rose gushed and fluttered around me, giving my look the finishing touches. "Doesn´t she look beautiful?"
I only rolled my eyes at their constant flattering, but gauging my appearance in the full body mirror in front of me, I had to agree. I looked pretty good, though maybe that was exactly what I didn´t need today.
`Don´t worry, Ness. Keep your calm and just don´t initiate any kind of physical contact. That should be fine.´
When I focused back on my reflection, I caught my aunts exchanging worried glances.
"What´s wrong?" I decided to ask.
They both looked like a deer in the headlight when they realized that their little exchange didn´t go unnoticed.
"Nothing," Rose smoothed her expression and cast an enchantingly innocent smile on her face. "How about we put on a bit more of that eye shadow? What do you think, Alice?"
"Su-"
"No, thanks," I interrupted, not in the mood for any more of their evasion and lies, seeing where this was going. "I´ll go back to my room, but thanks for helping me get ready." `for the party in eleven hours,´ I mentally added, glad that I bit it back when I caught sight of the distraught faces of my aunts.
"Nessie," Alice started, her fingers nervously fumbling with the rim of her designer shirt. After what seemed like eternity, she continued in a quieter voice, "I´m sorry we kept you out of the loop yesterday, but Edward, he-"
"Alice," Rose hissed with a warning glint in her honey-colored eyes.
"Rose, we can´t keep this from her. Who knows what´s going to happen tonight with the wolves; did you think about that for a moment?!"
She kept silent after that, but I could clearly see her jaw clenching in disapproval.
My eyes traveling between Alice and Rose, I patiently waited for an explanation, though I felt my curiosity slowly getting the best of me.
By now I had that voice marked down as a figment of my overactive imagination, a result of not enough sleep, an outlet for the emotional distress caused by the events in school, whatever. Just definitely not real.
`So what´s going on with the rest?´
Before I was able to voice the question, Alice had already started talking.
"You know that I can´t see you clearly, right?" I nodded affirmative. "But yesterday something changed when I saw a crystal clear vision of you grabbing that girl. We´re still not clear on the details but we have a theory."
I furrowed my brows, not really seeing the importance of the matter. Nonetheless, I waited for her to continue; any bit of information I could get from my normally tight-lipped family members was far better than nothing.
"Before I continue, you have to know that the reason my visions of you are all so vague is because you´re so tightly interwoven with the wolves, who I am – under no circumstances – able to see." She held her hand up, stopping me effectively from questioning. "My guess is that Jacob is going to tell you more about that tonight, but for now just let me finish talking, please."
I was close to retort, but her sharp gaze cut me off.
"The memory loss of the periods of time you acted so out of control, and the fact that I was able to see you supports our theory that there may have been something taking over a certain part of you. A part that is connected to the wolves, and that is responsible for keeping your basic instincts under control."
I swallowed, having a vague idea of where this was going.
"Well," she carried on, a bit more hesitant now, "you´re half human and half vampire, and even though we never ruled the possibility of problems arising because of those two co-existing out, Nahuel and his family never voiced any concerns or eventual complications that may occur, so…"
"So you mean," I cleared my throat that felt suddenly very tight, "that it´s possible that my… so far recessive vampire side decided to take control back in school?"
She didn´t answer, only gave me a meek nod.
I laughed awkwardly, trying to mask how scared I all of a sudden felt. I never gave much thought to that, only thinking that whatever happened in school was put down to some weird vampire quirk, or just generally having a bad day, or the lack of hunting in the past weeks, or… something fixable.
"And," I spoke up before my thoughts could drive me any crazier, my voice quiet, "what is going to happen if this other side of me… wins? I mean, will I still be me…?"
My eyes wandered from aunt to aunt, both sporting the same helpless, clueless look as I.
`So much for that,´ I thought with a bit of a desperate edge. Taking a deep breath, I willed myself to calm down. `Don´t cry now, Nessie. Don´t you dare let that drop leak; Think!´
And think I did, and after a long while, it hit me like a fucking ton of bricks in the head, and I felt a deep growl building in my chest as I put the pieces together.
`Stupid idiot, of course you didn´t imagine a fucking voice talking to you in your head! That was the damn vampire in you, getting you all riled up. Shit. Shit. Shit.´
Feeling the anger seep into my veins again, I tried not to let it control me or succumb to it, having still fresh in mind what happened the last time I felt the anger with such intensity. But no way was I going to let myself be beaten into submission by this vampire piece of shit (no offense to others of course, just specifically this one inside of me).
Clenching and unclenching my fists, I slowly relieved all the `bad emotions´, as I dubbed them, that could quite possibly serve as fuel for the vampire.
`Just you wait, just you wait…´
--
My aunts didn´t lose sight of me for the whole rest of the day until we had to get to the party. Their worried eyes followed me everywhere, and I could only guess that my little zone-out from before still weighed heavily on their minds.
The rest of my family came in the late mid-afternoon, just minutes before we had to get going.
My dad, of course, immediately picked up from Rose´s and Alice´s mind that they had told me what was going on. He was furious, yelled for some time, pointed out how I wasn´t ready to know, and how they probably damaged my poor, vulnerable psyche with their actions, yadda, yadda, yadda.
I simply ignored him for the most part, freshening up again upstairs, and only once asked him to let it go for now. He looked appeased, probably thinking about how much this evening meant to me – not that it particularly did, but he didn´t need to know that. I was glad enough that he for once wasn´t in my mind, despite the fact that my unexpectedly awakened vampire side was the cause.
--
After an awkward, uneventful ride down to the La Push beach, I was happy to see all the familiar friendly faces greeting us at arrival. In spite of my previous worries, I had no problems facing a group of certain people coming towards us.
Relief rushed through me as my eyes traveled over their three uninjured, thankfully-no-limbs-missing bodies. They probably lingered too long on one of the frames, but I paid no heed to that fact as I rushed towards them, enveloping all three in a bone-crushing hug.
Choruses of amused laughter greeted me, but when I pulled back I could see in their eyes that they too were as happy to see me in one piece.
Jake was the first one to address me, asking me how I´ve been, how school was, how my family was, and so on. I smiled politely and updated him on the happenings in Forks, neatly leaving the events of the past 48 hours out of my tales.
He kept sitting through all of it, a fascinated grin on his face I could not in a million years comprehend, while Leah and Seth snuck out sometime after my story of a guy in school accidently grabbing the ass of one of our older, male teachers.
After I had brought even the most boring stories on the table, and he still kept prodding, I excused myself to talk to some of the other guests. His sad gaze followed me through the crowd, but I quickly shook the guilt away. I had entertained him more than enough already.
My way somehow led me towards one very cheeky dark-haired Native American, sitting some yards away from the rest at the shore. Already having seen me in the distance coming, she instinctively held one of the remaining five beers next to her up for me. I gratefully took it and thanked her.
For a while we just sat there in silence, gazing out towards the soft waves at the dark horizon.
"So, kiddo," she broke the silence after taking another sip of her second beer, a jesting grin on her face as she turned towards me. "You successfully gotten laid yet?"
"Fuck off," I mouthed, the warm smile on my face easily betraying my words.
"So that´s a no then?" Leah´s husky laugh sounded above the rest of the chattering from the beach, and I couldn´t help but join her.
"Yeah, it´s a no, unfortunately," I admitted, feeling the frustration rise up again. She patted me on the shoulder in a comforting gesture, and I shot her an appreciative smile.
"Don´t worry, maybe you´ll soon get lucky," she winked at me in a suggestive manner, and I thought I felt my heart stop. God, if she meant that…
`Get your mind out of the fucking gutter!´ I mentally scolded myself, knowing that if I kept this up I´d surely fuck this up beyond repair somehow.
"What," I cleared my throat, trying to get rid of the lump. "What do you mean?"
"Nothing," she smiled innocently at me until something in the distance behind me caught her eye, and she sprang up, waving her hands up in the air.
`Guess she had a few beers before those two with me,´ I thought, grinning as I recalled some of our funnier drunken escapades.
"Jake!" she called in a volume that probably even the people in Forks could still hear. "Come over here, you bastard!"
She turned towards me as he came jogging over, smirked and jokingly told me to do my worst. I rolled my eyes, not exactly sure how to react to her insinuation, and flipped her leaving figure off. The gesture was returned and we both shared one last laugh before she disappeared in the masses of guests.
I suddenly remembered Alice´s words; `a small gathering´ or something. I shook my head as I estimated the crowd at a good eighty people, nothing really small for a normal welcome-home party. `Well, guess that´s Alice for you…´
"So," I whipped my head around at the voice, having forgotten that Jake was still here for a moment. He shot me a curt disapproving look for the rude gesture I´d made, but it was quickly replaced with a smile as he continued, "How about taking a walk along the shore? There´s something I need to talk to you about."
I furrowed my brows at his nervous state. He kept shuffling through the sand with his feet, eyes alternating between staring at me and the ground. The soft light from the moon illuminated the light flush on his face, and I had to suppress a giggle at the thought of him looking like a young schoolboy short before a confession.
"Sure," I tried to ease some of his nervousness, and took his arm because he was just too endearing at the moment for me to do anything else.
He led the way, and for a long while he just kept shooting me weird glances out of the corner of his eyes. I wasn´t sure what to make of them, so I simply kept quiet, wondering what it could be that caused a 180 degree turn from confident, cocky Jake to… this.
Just as I ended that thought, we slowly came to a halt. Taking a deep breath, he held me gently by the shoulders and turned me so I was facing him.
My eyes seemed to convey my discomfort, and he quickly let go, taking a respectful step backwards.
After another moment of silence, he finally seemed ready to say whatever it was he had to say. `Finally,´ I thought in mild annoyance at his beating around the bush.
"Nessie," he started, eyes uncomfortably boring into mine, "now that you are fully grown, there are things that you should know."
"Alright," I drawled, bracing myself for the big news.
He looked indecisive for a moment, but the indecisiveness gradually transformed into firm determination settling on his features.
"To make a long story short," he said, taking a step towards me, "I imprinted on you. I´ll explain all the details right now, because I´m sure you don´t really know what…"
His voice trailed off in my ears and I felt my chest painfully tighten as his words registered.
No, I didn´t need him giving me a half-assed explanation of what imprinting was, talking his head off as he tried to paint me the perfect picture. I knew exactly what imprinting entailed, having asked Emily after one of Leah´s drunken comments on the subject.
We had talked for a long while, exchanging opinions, pros and cons, and her personal experience with imprinting.
"It stole my best friend and cousin from me," she had said, the sadness and regret that I saw in her eyes making my insides churn.
The more she´d talked and told me about her past with Leah and Sam, the more she´d enforced my opinion on the subject.
Imprinting was simply absurd.
No one could honestly tell me that one single look justifies years of friendship and love, a whole planned future with the marriage, the white picket fence, the dog, the house, and the typical 2.4 kids, just being thrown away like that, as if it never held any significance at all.
In that instance I had thought that I´d rather kill myself than ever having to tell my loved one that I couldn´t be with them, because I wasn´t able to stay away, neither physically nor mentally, from another person I had just seen for the very first time in my life.
God… being at the absolute mercy of them, fulfilling every wish of theirs without a single complaint, finding no peace for the rest of eternity as an immortal being if my feelings weren´t reciprocated; not ever having a fight, not ever experiencing the joys of reconciling afterwards and looking back on how strong our love was to last us through it all.
I had remember all the times I´d seen Quil and Claire, Paul and Rebecca, Jared and Kim, and how happy they´d all looked in my memories. Smiling, gazing into each other´s eyes as if there was nothing else in this world that was worth living for.
I pitied them for their fate. I truly did.
`So yeah, I know exactly what imprinting is,´ I repeated in my mind, my initial numbness making way to the anger.
I knew he was still talking about whatever miracle it was, how he was so happy he didn´t need to search long for his soul mate, and how he´d do anything – anything – to ensure my happiness, but I couldn´t take this talk about his endless devotion towards me anymore.
`If I wanted a fucking slave I´d go and get me one,´ I thought viciously when I realized I had lost not only my Uncle Jake, but also one of my best friends to this curse.
"Stop talking," I hissed, interrupting whatever he was saying. My tone quickly shut him up, and after a long moment of gaining at least an illusion of composure, I began to talk again.
"Jake, how in the seven fucking depths of hell did you ever get the idea that telling me that you… imprinted," I spat the words in a deadly calm, "on me was a something that seemed - even in the slightest - like a good plan to you?"
He looked at me in confusion, as if not fully understanding the concept of me not being anything less than a willing sacrifice to his curse.
"I know that you´re maybe not ready for that kind of love now," he explained, completely misinterpreting my words. "We can just keep going like we always have. No pressure."
My eye twitched in irritation at the sight of his confident grin, clearly betraying his words, and I knew that he didn´t really mean his words. He´d seen the way every of the other imprint couples found their happy-end without much of resistance from either side, and I saw in his eyes that he felt like his own happy-end wasn´t faraway.
`Well, tough luck, buddy.´
"Jake," I said slowly, trying to find a way to let him down gently, despite my anger at the situation. It wasn´t his fault he´d imprinted, after all. "You´ve been part of my family and a friend since I can remember. I don´t think it would be a wise choice to change our relationship to something more… ever."
A brief look of panic fluttered across his features as he got the gist of my message, but he quickly covered it up with a sympathetic smile. "Ness, you don´t have to decide anything right now. I know you´re a bit overwhelmed, and I totally understand that."
"Jake, I really-"
"Seriously." He held a hand up, probably gradually realizing that things didn´t go exactly as he´d planned. "Just sleep on it tonight, and tomorrow you´ll see everything in a new light."
I sighed tiredly and rubbed my temples in an effort to keep the frustration at bay. "I don´t think even a new light is going to be enough to make me reconsider. I´m sorry, Jake."
"But… Ness," he tried again, the pleading tone of his voice making it clear that he finally started to see things for how they were. "You feel suffocated with all the information I just bumped on you, I understand, but—"
"No, Jake," I snapped, my patience for his lack of common sense run out, "I don´t feel suffocated at all, I feel betrayed above anything else! Do you even have any idea what exactly you just told me?!"
A look in his stricken face, and the blood in my body pumped harder as I realized that I had my answer.
"You basically told me," I explained, his wounded eyes just enhancing the force behind my words, "that all those years you spent with me, all the time you were with me, it wasn´t because you wanted to, it was because some fucked up hogo-pogo magic made you. You´ve never hung out with me out of your free choice, heck, you never had one – in nothing - Jake, and that is what hurts. It was all programmed into your head, telling you what to do, how to do it, and what to say to keep me and yourself up and happy."
I ran a shaking hand through my hair, taking a moment to get my ragged breathing under control and keep the tears that had by now filled my eyes at bay. He had already given up the fight, and the heartbreaking sight of the crumbling man in front of me made me question the justness of the existence of a magic so strong, it was able to make a grown man fall to pieces with a single set of words.
I blinked a fresh wave of tears away, and continued, my voice strained with emotion, "Deep inside of you, there´s still a part of the old Jake, I´m sure of it, and it probably resents me for having stolen his life. But believe me when I say how sorry I am for that, and if I could, I´d give his old life back in a second. Still, Jake, I need you to understand that there is no way I can have you around me, knowing that this probably isn´t what you truly want; knowing that maybe, if there was no imprint, you wouldn´t have even looked twice at me. It just hurts too much, and it may be selfish of me," I swallowed and took a step closer to him, tightly grasping his face between my hands, "but my last and only order as your imprint to you is for you to get away from me, bury up that part of the old Jake, and live."
I didn´t look back after that, just willing my legs to move, one feet in front of the other; away from him, just away.
"No, Ness!" I heard him call after me, desperation and fear tainting his voice. "I love you! Ness, I love you! Why are you walking away from me?! I need you; and you need me! NESS!!"
I didn´t react. As long as my feet kept their monotonous rhythm up, I was fine. Right, left. Right, left. Right, left. This was for the best.
But as I heard his last incredulous, broken whisper, I couldn´t help but wonder… was it?
"You´re supposed to love me…"
--
I didn´t know how I´d managed to get back to the party, I didn´t know where I´d found the two extra six-packs beer, nor had I an idea how the hell I´d managed to chuck them down before the sun came up (without any of my family actually interfering; God bless them). But some way or another I did all that, and now as I sat on the warm sand, staring out at the waves, I surprisingly felt neither exhausted, nor sad, nor drunk.
All my anger had evaporated, and I actually felt calm, completely relaxed and at ease with the world.
Of course, my luck had to run out sooner or later when I was greeted with Leah storming through the remaining few dozens of people, screaming my full name, middle name included, in full blast. Yeah, I knew I was in trouble when she used the middle name.
I turned around, facing her fast approaching figure. People started to find an interest in the spectacle too, and their eyes firmly set on the scene in front of them; whatever must have gotten Leah that riled up, would surely prove to be entertaining, right?
I ignored my family´s concerned glances I noted coming from the far back of the crowd. Not that there was any need to get closer, they could hear just fine even from that distance.
"Hello, Leah," I greeted her formally, a small smile tugging at my lips at her flushed face.
"Don´t you dare `hello Leah´ me," she quickly bridged the distance and grabbed me by the collar, her eyes furious. "Why the fuck did you do that to him?!"
I briefly noted that this affair may be less fun than I had anticipated, and any remains of the former smile vanished from my face in an instant.
"That´s none of your business, Leah," I stated, keeping my words and voice cold. "That only concerns me and Jacob, and if he somehow got you involved, I´m sorry."
"Are you fucking kidding me, Cullen?!" I flinched at the way she addressed me, but didn´t show any other signs of emotions as she pulled me closer to her face, hissing in my face. "Did you even see him? You broke him, you broke him, do you understand that?"
I snorted. "He was broken the moment he imprinted on me, Leah," I shrugged my shoulders. "Even I can´t fix him…"
She stared at me in disbelief for a few seconds before her features contorted to a mask of blind anger and sorrow. I barely felt the hard push I landed back on the ground with, my eyes purely focused on the dark-haired girl in front of me.
I didn´t listen to a word she was saying, didn´t give a damn about her arms flailing around, pointing, signing, wanting to make me understand. But I didn´t, couldn´t, for the love of Jeezus, understand why she was defending him; it.
I had thought her to be the first to condemn anything and anyone having to do with this devil´s business called imprinting. Her boyfriend abandoned her from one moment to the next for her cousin, and now she was standing here in front of me, genuinely blaming me for breaking the chains of this curse?
I didn´t understand. No. I had never understood anything concerning her, and in that moment that fact made me far angrier than it should have.
"He imprinted on you," she continued to rant, ignorant of my increasing fury with each word she spoke in his and the curse´s defense. "He fucking loves you more than his own life and you, you just stood there, smashing his heart into thousand fucking tiny pieces like that?! God, he fucking imprinted on you!"
"So what?" I hissed and jumped up, my control slowly slipping as the heat prickled beneath my skin. "Just because your ridiculous wolf curse told him to kiss my ass like a fucking mindless puppet, I have to return the sentiment and play along like the good wifey I´m supposed to be sooner or later?!"
Heaving a deep breath, I whipped my head away from Leah´s tragically sorrowful and desperate eyes.
"That´s just not how it works, Leah," I concluded after a moment of heavy silence, my voice softer and quieter now, and the left sensation on my skin nothing more than a light prickle.
I kept my gaze firmly on the soft waves for a long while, noting the first light already protruding over the edge of the far horizon. Only when I heard tiny grains of sand being crunched beneath a pair of feet – Leah´s pair of feet – did I turn back.
I didn´t expect it when it came. Neither my human reflexes nor my vampire instincts were able to prevent the unbounded force of an adamantine hand smashing right into the side of my face. My vision blackened for a few seconds, and as I slowly regained my bearings, I found myself lying with my back on the ground – once more.
Trying to shake the remaining fog from my head, I instantly noticed for the pain rippling through the entire right side of my face at even the slightest movement, effectively persuading me not to do that again.
Carefully propping myself up on the elbows, it didn´t take long for me to notice Leah only a few feet in front of me. Her body shaking, breathing ragged, eyes widened in disbelief, she stood there, frozen in place.
Before I was able to make sense of what the hell had happened just now, she whipped around and her legs transported her at full, genetically-increased speed away from me.
I didn´t move to follow her, to demand an explanation, something – anything. My body stubbornly refused extensive movement in its astonished, uncomprehending state, leaving me to sit helplessly in the middle of the La Push beach. A single look to my left confirmed my arising suspicions that there was not one of the remaining guests oblivious to what had taken place here a moment ago.
Gazing back into the direction Leah disappeared into, I realized yet again that Leah Clearwater truly was a mystery to me, and would probably remain one for the rest of my life.
`You´re so fucked.´
I didn´t even jump as the familiar voice echoed through my mind, and as much as I´d have liked to deny it, its words had indeed never rung truer.
"Great timing, vamp-side," I muttered under my breath as I slowly started to wonder which of the things I should be taking care of first; Leah´s slowly disappearing form in the distance, the gazes of wolves, humans, and vampires alike boring a hole in my head, the reappearance of the obnoxious vampire in my mind, or my still stinging face?
--
End Chapter 2
