Moonrise
Chapter 3: Mobile
I have to thank all you guys who reviewed. That was probably one of the most popular one chapter stories I've written. Oh, and also thanks to you guys who put me on alerts or favorites, even if you didn't review I still appreciate it.
(when I said "Jake imprinted guys" in the last chapter, I meant he imprinted on Maria, not on guys. lol)
OOO
A couple days passed, and I hadn't gotten one word from my foster father. Not one. Zip, nada, zero, nothing.
Then, a few nights after the awkward dinner, I was playing a video game with Jaime and the Hamster (whose real name was Alex, but I liked Hamster better) when Maria came into Jaime's room and said with a heavy expression: "Your father says we're moving. Tomorrow. Get your things packed tonight. Just the essentials. We'll come back for the rest some other time."
Well, that was easy for me—I only had so many belongings. But Jaime just stared at his mother. "What?" he asked incredulously. "Moving?"
"Yes, Jaime. Now, stop playing and start packing."
"Where?" He inquired, and I knew guys well enough to see that my "brother" was getting angry.
"Up in the mountains in Wyoming. Where we used to stay in the summer. Real overcast." I jumped, dropping the controller. It was Black, again. Mr. Black.
"Why?" Jaime asked. Wow, he had a huge vocabulary. One word and syllable sentences!
"We need more space," said Jacob Black smoothly, but his eyes rested on me for more than half a second, and I instantly knew that there was another reason. It had something to do with me, and it was other than the fact that I was taking up space.
"Whatever," said Jaime, getting up and walking over to his dresser, yanking open the drawer and pulling a bunch of boxers out.
"Okay," I said, getting up and setting the controller on top of the TV. As much as I wanted to watch a guy show me his boxers (please detect sarcasm), I needed to pack. "Leaving."
The Hamster followed me, dragging a blanket behind him. "You smell funny," he said, and as much as I liked kids, the Hamster was bugging me. Why did everyone think I smelled?
"That's nice, Alex," I called over my shoulder shortly, but he followed me into my room.
"Do you have on perfume?" asked Alex, acting slightly normal for a moment. I sighed.
"Not at the moment, why?" I asked quickly. The kid was trying my patience.
"Because you smell like… something I should know, I think." Alex looked at me for a moment, cocking his head to the side.
"Um." I didn't really know what to say to a comment like that.
Jaime saved me. "Don't you need to get to bed, squirt?" The Hamster nodded and trotted back to his room. I looked at Jaime.
"Please," I said, my tone laden with disbelief, "do not tell me that you're already done packing."
He shrugged. "Would it help if I told you it's a guy thing?"
"No, not really."
I got my duffle bag from the closet. Jaime looked at the things I put into it—all my gifts. "What's that?" he asked, pointing to a leather bound book in my hand. I flipped it over in my hand, showing him the engraved title.
"Twilight," I answered. "It's a book I got for my birthday last year, and I'm trying to understand why my parents would give me something like this. I mean, yeah, I like reading. It's fun. But… they usually get me something special. What's so special about a book?"
Jaime gazed at the leather book for a moment before taking it into his palm and flipping through the pages. "Have you tried to see if there was some hidden message in it?" Yes, I had.
The bad part was he was being sarcastic. I was pathetic.
He took in the guilty look on my face. "Okay—search for hidden messages, check. What about the story. Could the story be true?"
"I highly doubt it."
"Why?"
"Because there are vampires and werewolves and none of that crap is real." I said simply. He nodded in agreement.
"Yeah, I'd say that's a bit far-fetched." He turned the book over in his palm. "What about the names?"
"Been there, done that," I sighed. "I Googled them."
He raised an eyebrow. "Uh, wow" was all he said. I scowled at him.
"Like you've never Googled anyone," I accused, snatching the book from him and packing it. The next item was an iPod, which I had gotten for my fourteenth birthday. I couldn't live without music now.
"Yeah," he said in the same incredulous tone he'd used with his mother, "but they weren't fictional!"
I glared at him. "I've known you for three days. You are not aloud to poke fun at me just yet."
He grinned. "Whatever you say, boss." He gave me a small salute before disappearing from the room. I frowned after him, annoyed.
OOO
It was a long, long, long drive to the mountains. Ten hours. Ten ours of the Hamster bouncing in the backseat while I drove the car I'd gotten for my sixteenth birthday. It was silvery blue, a convertible. And Jaime just smiled as his younger brother clapped his hands. I was starting to wonder about Alex's sanity.
"My Dad must be evil," joked Jaime over the roar of the wind. "He went ahead with Mom and left us with Alex."
"No kidding," I said, too quietly for him to hear. My foster father was starting to confuse me. He never spoke at me directly, but when he talked about me, "the bl—" always seemed to come before my actual name. I didn't get it. And he stared at me with the same confusion that I looked at him with.
Like I wasn't what he expected.
By the time we got to the mountains in Wyoming, my patience had grown so short that I was about ready to scream at the Hamster. But all my rage vanished as we pulled up to the farm. It was one of those secluded horse farms, not the big, fancy ones that were furnished and gardened.
I slammed the door shut and leaned against my car as Jaime and the Hamster got out, too. The moving truck implied that the parents were already here.
Locking the car (there wasn't really a point, but it was still fun to beep things), we waltzed up the steps and through the house. It wasn't completely cabin-like; The whole downstairs was a normal type of house, but the upstairs was completely designed for the kids—bunk beds, lofts, and bean bags. I was a bit excited, I admit. This was different from stucco houses and developments.
As I was unpacking my stuff—yet again—up in the loft, Jaime leaned against the banister and said, "We've got school tomorrow."
My face went pale—well, paler than it usually was. I hated school with a passion. I usually skipped some classes, because I learned them online. It was required at the orphanage, because sometimes kids—kids like me—moved around a lot.
"Don't worry," Jaime said, laughter echoing through his voice. "I'll show you around. Of course, a sophomore showing a senior around could lower you on the status quo, if you care about stuff like that."
"I don't."
And I didn't. I didn't really care for who was popular, what were the best clothes, or how I looked. Except I did like make-up. I had never known a girl who didn't. And I did like keeping myself in shape—I ran a lot.
"So, here's your uniform." He tossed me a bundle of clothes. I stared at them for a long moment.
"Uniform?" I asked blankly.
He nodded, saying, "Yup. It's a private school, which means there's a lot of enforced rules that no one follows."
"That's nice," I said sarcastically. Jaime shrugged.
"It's true. We stayed here one year when I was ten." He grimaced, and I raised an eyebrow. "Kids in the high schools got a bit… um, dirty," he explained awkwardly. I sighed.
"And you know this because…?"
"Secrets were never secrets," he said lightly, "so I suggest you keep them to yourself."
"Boys! Cara!" came Maria's call. "Lunch!"
Jaime walked to the ladder; I followed him. At the dining table, there were only four placemats, not five. Jacob Black was nowhere in sight.
"Where's Daddy?" the Hamster asked from his seat. Maria looked at him fondly.
"He decided he needed to take a run. He'll be back later—he just needed some air," she told Alex, and the kid nodded, content.
I, on the other hand, was suspicious. There was something in the way she said the words, some double meaning. She said he needed to go for a run, okay. But "he just needed some air". Her eyes had flickered over to mine unwillingly as she had said that.
Had Jacob Black needed air because of me?
OOO
Haha. Cliffie for you all!!!!! I almost didn't update today because I had a huge paper I needed to write. But I did!!!! YAY!
Oh… About the book. Yeesh. Okay, it will be more thoroughly explained in the next chapter, or maybe the one after that. It is just like the regular twilight book, except the names are switched and how they look a little. They look like the normal characters in this story, but in the book that was given to Cara, I might make them look different. Compredo?
Any questions? Feel free to ask, but I can't guarantee an answer if it gives stuff away.
Jamie.