Chapter Four: Cracks
Songs: Mumford and Sons - Ghosts That We Knew/"Lover Of The Light"
Writers Note: Thanks to all my readers for faving/following/reviewing the story so far and I'm very sorry on the late chapter! Personal a lot was going on that I had to deal with in real life and also my pc did crash and lot nearly everything so I had to do a lot of writing to get back on track! Please keep reading and leave a review! Mika
Isabel for the moment felt like a beaten down dirty rag after the 5 hour flight from LA to the Chicago, her body ached and the one film that the airline had played had been "Pretty Women" of all flicks to pick. Even the music she might had listen too was enough to make the Caili girl want to claw out her own ears. Course to the rush in packing from home to here, she had also had left her I-pod in her suit case with out a thought so it had been a long plane ride.
Thankfully she had also booked a smaller plan that would had carried her Duluth, so no long drives and huge money spend on a car rental. The little plane had zipped in a two flight come the evening and something of a nap latter, she landed in a bright cascade of the sun falling over the skyline of Minnesota as lakes passed by, clear and clean as mirrors to the open sky. Colors spread in the full bloom of fall when had peeked out from the window in a sea of shades of red and yellows and tampered browns.
There was something Isabel had missed about living out in the country and in the middle of now were was the change of seasons, back in LA it was nearly all the same just minus the rains and random fires up in the hills and bush that would lower into the city and already mix with the haze of the pollution. Hell half the time she thought of keeping an air tank and mask on her in fear of getting lung cancer after living in Mercy Falls and knowing what real clean air was.
Now, Isabel had done a few phone calls and had called for a car rental to get from the air port, asking for a jeep for once! Not the normal car for the cold beauty who loved the speed of four wheels but if Isabel had to take a few two tracks back to Cabin St Cole, sometimes you had to make a few calls based on reason.
Some hours later, she was pulled out of Duluth, her I-pod hooked to the radio and songs mixed in with a few of Sam's she had loaded up and a few that Sam and Grace and even Cole had put in before she had left last year. Sort of their way of keeping with her, minus the phone calls well if Cole called it turned into a back and forth of dry wit and heavy sexual deviant jokes of both sides of the line. Rock boy had won the last talk but that had been weeks ago and it had been still warm enough he would stay human right? Could it be cold enough to lock Cole and Grace in their wolf skins once the sun set with out warmth? What was Sam doing and why had none of them called her back at all this week?
"Remind me to punch St Clair and chew out Sam and grace when I see them…" she thought, her blue eyes narrowing a moment as the ipod shuffled a bit. Biting her lower glossy lip from the build up of nerves and worries that had lain on her shoulders all week from the news and hoping her friends where still human. The sun shone brightly in casting out light into the forest as she drove by on the two lane track, no other car filled the raid in the warm in Indian summer. Yes it was warm enough to where the wolves would stay human but often the nights in Mercy Falls this time of year got cold quick and sharp enough to pull away the human skin.
Isabel knew also, Cole and Grace where the last of Beck's pack to still keep human at all; all the other wolves no longer came to be human under the summer heat at all. Pity did lightly rise back in her own mind, recalling Jack. Had somehow was karma punishing her? Not saving Jack? Not acting fast enough to save the wolves from the hunt? Not helping out Grace and Sam and Cole fast enough when they needed her at all? Was all this some kind of divine act to kill her with a freaking ass tumor of all things .She almost stopped the car, knowing in full truth: she was dying! Panic did nearly take the normal cool woman but what kept it down was she also knew she had a chance, becoming a wolf of all things.
Oh hell the idea scared the living shit out of her but Isabel was going to fight tooth and nail to live and beat this thing but could the wolf virus kill the tumor and save her. No, the idea of spending a winter as wolf and loosing months of her life was not a comfort but if it did work, she would have a life of her own. "Wonder how their going to take the news with the add on. Cole will most likely take it off the bat, being the way he is. Grace will be trouble but after facts sink in, being all practical and such as she it, the will side and help me. One big problem is Sam. He won't understand after everything has happened…." She muttered, the music lost in the back ground.
Some how the music caught the mood, making her tune into the music all the more as the song rolled out from the speakers:
So give me hope in the darkness that I will see the light
Cause oh that gave me such a fright
But I will hold on as long as you like
Just promise me that we'll be alright
Some how the song sounded like an epitaph to her for the moment, letting the words play in her head for the moment. Why did life have to go from one level to the next? A lot had happened in her life from loosing Jack and finding out that werewolves had been living in her back yard sort of. Which speaking of werewolves, Beck's house loomed in the frame of the woods.
Pulling up, she cut the roar of the engine as the sound of peace settled into the woods. Her eyes scanned a moment and saw no car in the drive way. Getting out, her black boots gritted on the path as she slammed the door shut and moved to the door to knock, listening for any kind of sounds of life from the brick building. Something about it seemed lonely, empty of the people who once called it home in the summer heat now lost to the bodies of wolves. Still nothing came from the house so it meant the pair was at Lair of St Cole.
"Great, one more long drive to the middle of no were…." She thought, still a bit fearful two of her friends had lost themselves to the wolves.
Jumping back into the jeep, she pulled out and once more headed out to the cabin and the new home of the wolves as the white birch loomed with golden leaves in a blur as she put more into the gas. In moments the sleepy streets of Mercy Falls fell under away from her tires as she passed from human world once more into the wild of nature and making a few turns on a back road here and there to get to the cabin, More and more of the worry on explaining and popping out the news ran around in her like a bad pop tune.
Warm air hit her, bringing in the scents of the woods and making her smile a bit. LA and the city life could be nice but nature had its own way of stirring into the heart. Isabel would be the last person to say she liked the woods in open public but she had sort of missed this place. Mercy Falls also had given her some of the only true friendships she had ever had from a werewolf boy, a book nerd and a former rock band lead of all things to find in these silent woods.
Normally a outsider would use a GPS to find this place but she knew the way. Pulling onto the two tracks with a faint scent of fresh water moving into the air of the lake close by on the edge of the woods. Smoke did curl from the chimney a bit in a white whisper, saying someone living and very human was in the cabin. Along with two cars, Sam's and a 2011 Ford black Truck that screamed Cole somehow to her with a raised blond brow.
Maybe also it was the feeling of not being alone that made her stand still for moment much like how she had picked up from the human wolves she called friends to listen to the forest life, feeling of eyes on her and watching her made Isabel turn a moment to peek in the way of a few pine trees with the shape of a wolf very much looking. The fur was a molt of browns ands rusty red over the chest with black tipped ears. Way to hazel eyes stated right back her with a very un-wolf like weight to the gaze, nearly human in the light. Still she knew that was no normal wolf with such human eyes watching the human who had come to the pack's world.
Did he know somehow? Recall her scent some how in his vague impression of memories? Could they hold something of regains of a human way? She had asked Cole that once and even Grace, both had different views but they not been wolves also long enough to recall in deep information. Hell, Isabel had thought to ask Sam but knowing how he took to questions on the wolves and pack. Well he just always got this look in his face and tone in his voice with out briskly saying no.
He only watched the human for the moment, his nose twitching and not placing the scents of memory to the humans/pack members who lived and came and went from the lands. She was human yes, normally his instincts would tell him to run and blend into the forest but Derrick had always had the most human curiosity in wolf form and still did. But the distant did recall a house and food left out in the back in his mind, sort playing connection dots in the lupine head. Tilting a bit to catch maybe her voice not so far but a image of deer and the message of hunt pulled the wolf away in moments in rush of paws but he looked back once with maybe something of a smile. There was something new in the woods to watch.
Isabel watched with a faint but weary inquisitiveness in how the wolf did act and rush off, but also more of a question. She personal had never really seen too much of the pack save Grace and Sam and Cole here and there. "Stranger things have happened." She thought, blinking in hearing someone was walking down the path.
"Isabel? What in the world are you doing here?" Grace moved between the parked cars, glad in normal jeans, a tan blouse of long sleeves and hiking boots that had seen better days. Blond hair was kept in capture in a braid but a few loose hairs shone in the sunlight. Blue eyes looked wide and full of surprise and thankfully she looked very human in her skin.
"Thought I would see if you where still alive after not picking up my cell phone calls Brisbane or are you Miss Roth yet?" Isabel shot out the normal dry tone that came with the image of Isabel but she smiled a bit more warmer and softer at one of her friends."
Grace blinked, smiling brightly before moving to a few yards to lightly hug the other girl for the moment, not to tight or long but effect. Yet something her scent had changed, the wolf stirring a moment under the human skin. Making her brows tighten a moment but not saying or pushing. Release to step back a bit and eyeing her more out. "Sorry, I lost my cell phone a bit ago and we don't get much of a single out this way. I've been trying to get Cole to get a land line but he keeps putting it off."
Much had not changed yet something had, Grace for the moment thinking but blinking, "Let's get inside. Cole is down stairs doing his mad scientist thing."
Shaking her head as the blond turned to platinum in the sunlight, the Caili girl followed the other into the cabin, picking up scents of wood smoke from the chimney as it moved white in the air. Isabel for the moment took in the time to see the cabin had been fixed up, new glass and wood.
Grace moved up the steps with Isabal not to far behind and opening the door, scents of smoke filled both their noses with other unknown and maybe some peninsula l? Grace blinked as her eyes took in the change of light a bit as Isabel shut the door and took a spot to lean on the love seat that had seen better days from the once blue and dull coloring. "Cole, we got some company if you want to stop playing mad scientist for a while."
Sounds from the basement and a creak of stairs caught the Caili girls' ears as Cole St Clair made his grand entrance to the world. Looking always like some broken artist dream that had broken and shatter the first drawing. A sort of savage handsome most woman would have wet dreams on must one look and yearning to kiss those full lips and sharp blue eyes always seeming half empty and raw as he was. Jagged in body language but hard in lean muscles, the holey Black Sabbath shirt that clung to his upper body and low cut jeans showing off the cut of his pelvis bones as he moved into the light. Unruly hair of a deep bronze was longer and ragged but it only made him look more like a wild child or man. Something of the side effect of the wolf under his skin?
"Well, look what the wolf dragged in? Miss Isabel Cooper! What a shock you would drop the sun and plastic people of California for cold weather and werewolves!" Cole's sharp sarcasm hit a new high but he did smile a bit warmer then he might have at the "normal people" of the world.
Shrugging a bit, "Yah thought I would stop by to see if you where in the none shedding shape still Cole. Could it kill you to call me back once in a while?"
St Clair tilted his head, hearing a sharp tone but winced a little in blunt statement, "Sorry bout that seems I chewed on my cell phone in wolf form a few weeks ago. I got it all on web cam if you want to see for kicks."
"Chew on your cell phone?" She asked, looking at Grace who only rolled her eyes.
Cole sheepishly for once had a time to look embattled, "Temps fell to cold and I shifted in the house and well, come morning woke up with my cell phone in wolf bite treats."
Some how the idea of Cole, eating his own cell phone just got a rare thing from Isabel Copper: a real laugh. Breaking out in a full on laughter. Both Grace and Cole just did a dead on blank look in seeing the former icy queen break down into a gut on laugh, tears building under her long eye lashes and pooling to slide a few down her rosy cheeks. Hair that had grown back, full locks flashed nearly silver in the light as they bounced from the movement, echoing off the walls but soon even Grace was laughing at the idea of Cole eating his own phone.
Well for the most part, the once play boy rock star just stood there and took it much as a man he could but if it got Isabel to laugh, hell he would take one for the manhood team. Yet soon all the laughter ended, Cole feeling that gnawing feeling that there was more to the random pop up of Miss Cooper then she was letting on, "So Isabella, why the drop in out of the blue? Something more had to drag you out to no man's or well werewolf land with out a cause?"
Grace had known some how Cole would hit the nail on the head, watching the beauty take a moment to lean back on the sofa's back and lightly crossing her arms, many things rippled on her fine lips from a nearly sad look to something of the normal frozen look she kept, but her lips pulled tightly as she took a deep breathe and finally looked at them both, making even their wolves under the skin grew still from the icy look in her eyes and dark lashes.
"Ok, don't ask or say anything till I get done. Not even you Cole and you bits of useless wise man crap." Isabel's voice was dead pan, leaving no room for any sort of talk back. "The last few months ago, I started to have these bad headaches, moments of dizzy spells and having problems sleeping. Thought it was stress from collage life and my normal life drama so I went to a Doctor, he did a few check ups on me. Ask me for some x-rays last week and near 5 days ago called me back into his office. Turns out cutting the bull crap, I have a tumor in my brain its going to kill me in 6 months or less. Also no, they have no surgery they can do at all to remove it buy me life time."
Tick Tick went the Grandfather clock as the truth was thrown out, blue eyes for the moment watch things of shock cover the pairs face, pity filling them for a moment or two but Cole covered his deeper feelings faster then Grace could, while she only bite her lip and had the feeling of tears lay and fight to come out. After everything and loosing so many people over the last year did Isabel also have to sacrificed?
Isabel kept rolling, knowing it was best to hit the damn nail on the head. "More the reason I'm here, personally I'm not ready for a dirt nap or to stop fighting. I want a chance to live my life, in any way or well shape. I want to become a wolf, hoping in theory it might fight off the tumor. I want you to make me a wolf."
In this moment, Sam stepped into hear the words, Isabel filling his eyes. "I want you to make me a wolf." Filling his ears and everything stopped in that moment. Hearing his only real human friend saying words he thought he would never hear.