The drive back to Dakota's house was much too short for his liking, so he idled in her driveway for a few minutes trying to figure out what to say to make her want him to stay. Paul found himself drumming his fingertips on the steering wheel nervously, his sudden inability to say anything making his heart beat fiercely.
Thankfully, Dakota wasn't paying much attention. She was staring at the camera in her lap, fiddling with the lens purposefully. He watched as her eyebrows knitted together in frustration, nostrils flaring ever so slightly. As he observed, he couldn't help but think of how different she was from the imaginary imprint his mind had built over time.
Even though the idea of looking at a stranger and suddenly realizing he would die for her hadn't been exactly appealing, he would sometimes catch his mind wandering to his unknown "soulmate" at the most inconvenient times. He would be at Sam's house, just watching some TV, when suddenly his thoughts would shoot straight to a tall, dark-haired faceless female who could cook a mean steak.
Of course, Paul would push it all to the back of his mind where the pack couldn't find it during shifts, but staring at the tiny girl beside him made him wonder why he'd ever dreaded imprinting in the first place. He knew very well the effect he had on women because, hell, he'd used it to his advantage plenty of times. With his imprint seemingly unaffected by even his most practiced of moves, however, he found himself at a loss. It was frustrating, but mostly it was exciting; he felt like he was starting all over again, and there was no one he'd rather have to learn than Dakota.
That was why her observation about his affiliation with their waitress at Rosie's had upset him so. Paul might not have been able to change his past, but god how he wanted to. Her light, joking tone about his meaningless one-night stand had made his stomach flop. One of his many theoretical white elephants had seemingly been escorted out of the room, but he worried Dakota would see him as nothing more than the worst version of himself possible, and write him off completely.
"Hey, Paul?" She interrupted his worrying, giving him a look he couldn't quite read.
"Mhm?"
"I'm gonna ask you a question, but don't make it weird, okay?"
His heart leapt into his throat at the infinite possibilities, both good and bad. "Shoot."
Dakota took a deep breath, held it, then blew it out forcefully. "CanIphotographyouformyseniorproject?"
Relief bubbled in his chest like champagne. "Photograph me?"
"Well, yeah," she mumbled, turning back to the camera in her lap. "We have to do our project on a career, and I thought photography would be a pretty easy topic for me to write about. We have to have a product of sorts to go with it, too."
"Why me? Why not Leah or another one of your friends? I mean, I don't mind, but I don't get it."
She scoffed bitterly. "Leah's been avoiding me like the plague and I haven't really got any other 'friends' who I would even consider asking."
Aside from her name, it was the first real thing he'd learned about her. "Why not?"
At the seemingly harmless question, she began to withdraw back into herself. It was such a blatant coping mechanism, but still hid so much from him. "I'm not so great with people, I guess."
Paul went to reach for her hand, but thought better of it. "Well, you've got me—so when do you want to get started?"
Dakota popped the lens cover back on her camera and gave him a rueful smile. "I'm not sure yet, but I can give you a call when I've got everything figured out?"
She handed him her cell phone, so he saved his name and number to her contacts. As she tucked her camera into her back and checked to make sure she'd grabbed everything, he restrained himself from reaching out and pulling her in for a hug.
"Thanks for the ride," she said. "I'll give you a call soon, okay?"
She gave him a weak little wave and sloshed her way through the puddles that littered the walkway to her front porch. When she was safely under the overhang, she turned around for just a moment—just long enough for Paul to notice the gleam of tears in her eyes.
OoO
Fifteen calls, no answer. Frantically, she hit redial and paced around her living room, trying her hardest not to scream. At the mention of Leah, after spending the afternoon with the exact person she'd warned her about, Dakota had suddenly become overwhelmed with a miserable mixture of guilt and self-loathing. After admitting there was really no one by her side other than Leah, she felt like the worst best friend on the face of the planet and desperately needed the older girl to tell her everything was going to be okay.
Leah Clearwater, the only true friend she'd ever known, was ignoring her. Blatantly so, at that: most calls rang for around thirty seconds before going to voicemail, but the most recent calls went to the automated message in half that time. Dakota felt like she was on the verge of combusting, all of her emotions from the past few weeks flaring up at once and taking her by surprise.
After the sixteenth call, she dropped her phone on the couch and ran to the downstairs bathroom, emptying her stomach of its meager contents within an hour of putting them there. Her throat burned and tears streamed down her face as she hunched over the toilet bowl. All she could think as she retched as that the last time she'd felt how she did right then, she had ended up in the hospital for a second time.
A violent shudder rolled through her body, her nausea and memories of her last visit to Port Angeles equally to blame. The severity of her sudden episode was a cause for confusion, though; Dakota had been keeping up with her medications, using her stress ball, and even went on walks on afternoons she wasn't working. Although she was ostracized from Leah, it hadn't exactly been the type of week that would justify breaking down in the guest bathroom.
To calm herself, she stood at the sink and splashed cold water on her face. It was difficult to ignore her red-rimmed eyes and the rapid rise and fall of her chest, but she just continued to douse herself, not caring if she made a mess or not. She'd mop it up when she felt better.
The frigid water combined with the air blowing from the vent at her feet made her shiver. It was incredibly uncomfortable, but it gave her something to think about other than the fire in her stomach. Slowly, her breathing began to even out and her customary post-attack headache set in, signaling the end of the explosions in her chest.
After drying herself off, Dakota tossed a couple of hand towels over the small ocean on the tile floor and headed back into the living room. She checked her phone in vain, trying to ignore the dull pounding behind her eyes as she scrolled through her recent calls.
Once she made it past all of her outgoings to Leah, she saw where Paul had saved his own number and called it to get hers. For half a second, she considered calling him just to hear someone's voice, but she really didn't want to freak him out with her episodes yet. She considered him a friend, but she didn't think he'd be able to handle being around her if he knew what a loose cannon she could be.
Instead, she shot a text to her mom full of false details about how good things were going at home, and then tromped upstairs to her bedroom to put on pajamas and lay in bed. There was a stack of DVDs on her nightstand that called out to her, so she popped one in and turned the volume on low.
Once safely in comfortable flannel, Dakota burrowed into her bed and pressed play on the remote, taking some of the emergency pills she left on her bedside table for her episodes. The movie worked as a good distraction for a while—an easy-to-follow crime drama with just enough mystery to be interesting—but around 10:00pm, her phone began to ring downstairs.
At first, she ignored it. Her mom was working and Leah had been ignoring her for weeks, so really, who else could be calling? She turned the volume up on the TV slightly, hoping to drown out the noise. It worked well enough, and Dakota pulled her comforter tighter around herself.
She had just eased back into the movie when the house phone began to chime, announcing an incoming call from a number she didn't recognize. The rain seemed to beat a little harder, the wind seemed to howl a little louder, and she was forced to pause the movie and head downstairs. Her mind was beginning to work itself back into a panic, and with each step she took closer to the ringing phone, the harder her heart began to pound.
With a shaky hand, she took the receiver off the line, unable to speak. Instead, she listed to the noises in the background on the other side of the line, unable to make out anything but tense and muffled speaking.
"Miss Moreno?" A voice chimed on the other end, causing Dakota's breath to hitch. "Miss Dakota Moreno?"
"H-hello?" She squeaked, much more terrified than she cared to admit.
"Good evening, ma'am. This is Dr. Cullen from Forks General," the man said cordially. "Your mother had an incident at work, and you are first on her emergency contact list."
"Hospital?" Dakota repeated dumbly.
"Yes ma'am. If you could come straight away, it would be greatly appreciated."
As if on autopilot, her mouth managed to thank the doctor for calling and her hands hung up the phone and her legs took her back upstairs to put on clothes. Then they walked her back downstairs to where she'd left her phone, which her hands used to call Leah out of habit.
Although she wasn't surprised when she didn't answer, it snapped her back to the reality of the situation. Her mom was in the hospital, and she had no way to get there because her best friend was being a little pissbaby about—
"Paul!" She thought aloud, scrolling as quickly as she could through her phone until she came across his number. Without giving herself a chance to overthink it, she called.
He answered on the fourth ring, sounding absolutely winded. "Hello?"
"Paul, I need you." She wanted to kick herself as soon as the phrase left her mouth, knowing full well the connotation of it.
"And don't you forget it!"
"Paul, my mom is in the hospital and Leah won't answer her phone. I need you."
"Oh, shit," he exclaimed. She thought she heard the sound of rustling leaves in the background. "Give me ten minutes, I'll be right there. Do you know what happened?"
"No," she droned, as if in a trance. "But we'll find out when we get there, I guess."
"Don't worry, Kota. Everything's gonna be alright."
At his comforting words, she let go of a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. "Thank you, Paul."
"Don't thank me—I'm here, whenever you need me. I'll see you in a minute, okay? Be ready to run out the door."
She agreed and hung up, lighting a cigarette the second her phone was in her pocket. As she paced the living room, she tried not to worry herself into a frenzy about how her mother had ended up where she was, but instead tried to focus on how glad she was that Paul had answered. Between drags, she muttered "thank you" to whatever inanimate object would listen, willing herself to stay calm.
When she finished the first, she lit a second one off its ember, afraid of how badly she would freak out if given the opportunity to really think about what was going on. Instead of dwelling on it, she ran back to the guest bathroom and cleaned up her mess from before to make the time pass faster.
Before she knew it, a horn sounded from her front yard. She threw the towel she was using to the floor, grabbing her bag on her way out the door. The constant rain and wind of the Washington coast brought a foreign sense of dread with it, pounding down on the driveway around her as she sprinted to the truck.
"Let's go," Dakota urged, snapping her seatbelt in place. "I need to know what's going on before I lose my mind."
Paul backed out of the driveway in one swift motion. "Do you have any ideas?"
She lit a third cigarette, surprised when he didn't recoil in disgust as he had in the past. "Absolutely no clue. Doctor Cullen called the house and said she was there, but didn't explain any more than that."
At the mention of the doctor, she could've sworn she heard Paul practically growl—she shot him a bewildered look, but he kept his eyes on the road as he spoke. "Do you want me to come in?"
A crack of lightning lit the sky ahead of them, and she waiting for the following clap of thunder to sound before whispering, "It would be nice. I hate hospitals."
He was going at least fifteen over the speed limit, but thankfully there were no other cars in sight. It might've been uncommon to get pulled for speeding in Forks, Washington, but Dakota's luck wasn't exactly at its peak, so she continually checked the mirrors for headlights behind them.
They made it to the hospital in record time, swinging into the first open parking space and darting inside. Their shoes squeaked against the linoleum as they approached the triage nurse, but she didn't look up from her computer screen. It was all Dakota could do not to violently bang on the service bell sitting on the counter, but she managed to clear her throat politely. Being rude to the nurse would only make things harder in the long run.
"Can I help you?" The nurse asked, not even attempting to fake a smile. There were extremely dark bags under her eyes and Dakota spotted an empty energy drink can in the trash behind the desk, so she tried not to take her bored stare too personally.
"My mother was recently admitted: Katherine Moreno. I need to speak with her doctor."
Beside her, Paul made another odd noise like he had in the truck, but the nurse didn't seem to notice. She was too busy typing away at her computer, clicking around a few times before pulling out a notepad from beneath her keyboard and scribbling something down on it.
"This is the room number and the security code to the door in the hallway. Doctor Cullen should be with her as we speak."
Dakota grabbed the paper and sped down the hallway, completely forgetting to thank the nurse. Oh well, she thought, I'm sure she doesn't really care. She punched in the security code and shoved the door open the second it unlocked, almost forgetting Paul was with her.
He kept her pace without any trouble, even beginning to walk ahead of her with just as much determination as she had. Although he hadn't seen the room number on the paper, he led the way confidently and stopped at the door marked 47. She didn't even bother to check the paper in her hands, for she could see her mother through the little window in the door.
"Momma," she gasped, pushing past Paul. "Oh my god, Momma…"
Dakota rushed to her mother's bedside, gaping at the bulky brace around the woman's neck and the dark bruising around her left eye. She looked absolutely awful, and Dakota felt the fire rising in her stomach all over again.
"Hello again, Dakota," came a cool voice from the corner of the room. "It's nice to see you, although I wish it were under better circumstances. The same goes for you, Mr. Lahote. "
In a flash, Paul was by her side, arm protectively slung over her shoulders. Dakota didn't have the energy to fight him about it, or ask how he knew the doctor, instead turning to the blonde man. "What happened to her?"
At that, the small smile disappeared from the man's unnaturally beautiful face. "It seems that she was attacked in the parking lot while getting in her car."
The grip around her tightened ever so slightly, and Dakota felt her throat go dry. The doctor continued, "She has defensive fractures in both forearms, two bulging discs in her neck, and some obvious cuts and bruises."
"Did they catch who did it?" It was Paul who spoke this time.
The doctor shook his head, but Dakota noticed a catch in his voice as he said, "The attacker was seen fleeing the scene, headed towards the reservation."
Beside her, she felt him tense. The two men seemed to share a silent conversation with their eyes, and the fire in her stomach began to roar with ten times the ferocity it had earlier that evening. Silently she excused herself, darting down the hallway to the nearest bathroom and locking herself in the first open stall.
In that room, her mother laid unconscious, battered, and bruised from being in the wrong place at the wrong time. If Dakota hadn't been such a needy child—photography and Dr. Gwen and special early dinner dates to take her mind off of her pathetic life—her mom wouldn't have been there. She wouldn't have needed the second job that kept her out of the house until the early hours of the morning dealing with the least reputable characters in the county. If she wasn't so broken, her mom would've been safe at home watching the evening news and having a beer, or maybe even out on a date instead of being a prisoner to her daughter's ridiculous needs. As Dakota teetered precariously over the toilet, nothing but guilt left her mouth.
Hours could've passed in that stall, the sickly stench of disinfectant wiping her mind of any concept of time. All she knew was that the traumatic events of that evening were her fault, the collapsing of her only friendship was her fault, and her pathetic inability to toughen up for the things that really mattered was her fault, too.
There came a knock at the stall door, and she muttered that it was occupied. The feet belonging to the woman who'd disturbed her didn't move, however, and Dakota willed herself not to scream in frustration. Instead she screwed her eyes shut, sitting on the toilet and pulling her feet to her chest.
"Hey," came a soft and familiar voice from the floor. "Let me in."
When she opened her eyes, none other than the elusive Leah Clearwater was spread out on the bathroom floor, peering up at her best friend from beneath the thick plastic wall. An inkling of anger came and went in an instant, and soon she found herself sobbing uncontrollably as her best friend dragged herself into the little stall.
"Shh," the older girl soothed, taking Dakota into her arms and trying to stay upright in the tiny space. "Everything is okay. She's going to be okay. Breathe."
She just sobbed harder, limbs shaking and nose running, knotting her hands into Leah's t-shirt. Although a quiet voice in the back of her mind whispered for an argument, it was drowned out by the immense amount of comfort that came from being safe in her best friend's arms.
"It's my fault," Dakota blubbered. "She wouldn't have been there if it wasn't for me!"
"It's not your fault, honey," Leah murmured into her hair. "The only person at fault is the person who did it, and we're gonna get him. I swear to you, we'll get him."
There was something steely in her promise, a grit that began to calm the younger girl. She couldn't explain why, but she was sure Leah was right. She used the thought to ebb the flow of tears down her cheeks, and within a few minutes, she was calm once again.
"Thank you," Dakota whispered, wiping her face with cheap toilet paper. "Thank you for coming."
"If I had known what was going on, I would've been here sooner. I'm sorry I haven't been answering your calls—"
"Don't apologize. You're here now, that's what matters."
"Still. I'm sorry."
"Well, you're forgiven. How'd you know where I was, anyway?"
Leah looked down at her feet in shame. "Paul called the house, left a message with Seth. I came as soon as I could."
Dakota gave a weak smile. "So I guess he isn't too bad, huh?"
The somber mood having subsided, Leah snorted lightly. "I still think he's ridiculous, but I guess he's not too bad."
As if summoned, there was a hard knock at the outer door of the women's restroom. The hinges groaned in protest as the heavy door swung open, and heavy footsteps made their way into the room. "Kota, are you alright?"
"Yeah, yeah," she was flustered, not wanting anyone to see her in the state she was in—especially not Paul. "I'll be right out."
There was a pause on the other side of the stall. "Alright, well I'll be right outside, okay?"
Leah rolled her eyes as the door squeaked shut again behind him, and the smaller girl found herself chuckling. As she stood cramped in a microscopic, dingy bathroom stall next to her best friend and rock, she felt courageous enough to go back to her mother's bedside and hold herself together. Her mom needed her to be strong, and one way or another, Dakota was determined to come through.
