Chapter Seven: Making Plans for Nessie

The conversation we'd had in the garage had gone a long way to healing the rift, but as they left and I drove home, having fixed up to meet Jake later; I still could not shake the feeling that I still not feel as connected to them as had done. I couldn't stop thinking about the weird stuff my Dad had said. Me have romantic feelings for Jake? I scoffed. Having romantic feelings for Jake would be so very wrong. It would be the same wrong as having those feelings for a brother, or one of my uncles. He was a family friend, nothing more. Absolutely, there was a time when we had been inseparable, but I had moved on, got friends of my own and… I'd simply grown out of Jake. He should get himself a nice girl and settle down, he was twenty two now, time didn't stand still for him the way it did for us. Why didn't he have a girl, I wondered? In all the time that I'd known him and the other members of his pack, he had been the only one without a girlfriend. I'd never heard one mentioned or his pack member's tease him in the way they did the other guys did about their girls, or Leah about her boyfriends. Jake was a great guy, he'd have no trouble attracting a nice girl. If I mentioned it to Jess I knew what she'd say. It was her stock reaction to any good-looking guy who was inexplicably without a girlfriend.

"I bet you any money, he's gay."

When I arrived home, Grampa was already in the kitchen frying eggs and bacon. It looked like we were fixing dinner for ourselves again. He looked at me quizzically.

"What?"

"I was expecting your hair to be singed or something."

"Huh?"

"I've never seen Edward quite that angry."

"Ah, he's fine."

"Really? He's fine with his daughter getting drunk?"

"No, obviously; but we worked it out."

"Ok. You want some of this?"

I shook my head. "I'm eating with Jake tonight."

Grampa pointed out the window. "Out?" I smiled.

"Yeah." I pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down. "Grampa? Did Mom and Dad ask about Jake today?"

"Yeah, they did. They were surprised that you barely spend any time with him these days. I hadn't thought about that much, but now that they've come to mention it, you don't hang out with him like you did when you were a kid. You were always together. I don't think I'll ever forget the sight of you riding in through the door on his back. Some girls have horses, my granddaughter has a horse-sized wolf." He shuddered and poked at the slices of bacon with a spatula. "It's the strange reality I now live in." He added, under his breath. I really should tell him I could hear it all.

"Did they imply anything?"

"What do you mean?"

"I dunno… Expecting me and Jake to be more than friends?"

He shook his head. "No. Why? Do you wanna be?" He grinned. "Hey, I could put a good word in for you. I know his Dad."

I laughed. "No thanks Gramps I already have Ricky."

"Yeah, that was a surprise to everyone. You've got a boyfriend and you forgot to tell us all? It's like your mother all over again, except you're the scary vampire one. I probably should keep clear of Lynda Scott."

He turned back to the skillet and pushed the food around for a minute longer. A vein of curiosity bubbled within me.

"Grampa?"

"Yep."

"What did you think of Dad when you met him?" He turned off the heat and scooped the eggs and bacon on to a plate. He brought it over to the table and sat down.

"He was a good kid. Nice, very polite, very good looking, very… pale." He smiled, wryly. "Kid's the wrong word isn't it for someone who's a hundred and thirteen. He's a good man. I'll admit; I didn't like him at first, but him and Bella… Although there was that business where he… Ach! That was a horrible few months. Jake saved the day on that one though." He tucked into the bacon. He'd spoken about it! He knew! I could ask Grampa about Mom, Dad and Jake.

"What was a horrible few…" The phone rang.

"Get that would you?" He said trying to chew. I got up and answered the phone.

"Hello? Yes, he's right here." I handed Grampa the phone. "It's Ryan for you."

Grampa's shoulder's sagged and he took the phone. "Hello?" He listened, his eyes flicked to me, his countenance dropping further all the time. "Ok, well, I'll just finish up eating and be back in. I'll see you later. Bye." He clicked off the phone and exhaled in sadness.

"Problem?"

He fixed me with a look. "A hiker reported missing two days ago has been found in the woods. His throat has been torn out." He launched into his food again. "I thought the wolves were dealing with this. You don't know anything about this do you?"

"No!" I was hurt by the assumption that I would. "Grampa, you know I don't hunt people."

He put down his knife and fork. "I know. I'm sorry I said that. It's just now, now I know what to look for, I see it all the time in reports coming in from other places. I know vampires pass through here, but Jake assured me that the wolves would deal with them. Looks like this time they failed. Have your parents gone?"

"I think so."

"Pity. I could have done with their help on this." He started back on his food.

That evening, in an effort to help, Jake and I ran silently through the trees to the place to the south of the site where the arc lights were trained. We stopped a little way out and I pulled out my phone and texted Grampa to say that we were close.

"Can you smell anything?" I asked the wolf. "I can't." Jake shook his head. "We should circle around, see which way they went."

Jake and I had hunted and on our return had picked up the scent of the forensic team as they worked at the site where the body had been found. Maybe we could help discover who had attacked him, using methods the Police investigation team did not have. I had picked up nothing that told me another vampire was in the area, although it wasn't usual to come across the scent of one. My phone beeped and Grampa replied that the Doctor was examining the corpse now. I replied that we would circle the area, see if we could pick up anything.

The wolves patrolled the peninsula now that my family were gone. This had been our territory and, being what we called 'vegetarian', we had protected the residents ourselves while we were here; but that was the wolves' job now. Occasionally, however much they patrolled, one eventually got through. They didn't last long though if the wolves got to them; the Quileute wolves had teeth capable of tearing vampire flesh to pieces. Torch the remains and the trespassing vampire was ancient history.

I jogged through the trees in a wide circle of the site, Jake trotting behind me; both of us tasting the air, alert for the tell-tale scent of vampires. It wasn't until we hit a place to the north west of the site that we came across anything of interest. It was not vampire, it was mountain lion and it was a fairly fresh trail, not twelve hours old. Jake registered it too. We carried on, completing the circle but could find no evidence for any vampires having been there.

"What do you think?" The shape beside me phased and where there once was a wolf there was now Jake, a very naked Jake; I was used to that.

"Looks like a straight mountain lion attack."

"Safe to tell Charlie you think?"

"Yeah, I don't think this was a vampire. I've not seen the body, but I guess an animal attack." I nodded, agreeing with Jake's surmise. I texted our findings and a few minutes later the reply came back.

"Yep, Doc says animal. Looks like hiker died of natural causes and animal came to investigate."

I showed Jake the message.

"Good. I'm a little beat to be chasing vampires tonight." He looked at me to find a pleading look on my face. We may not have a vampire to hunt, but there was something else in the area that I wanted. He sighed. "Nessie wants to go play with the mountain lion?" I bounced in eagerness. I didn't get the opportunity for mountain lion too often these days and I wasn't passing up blood that tasted far superior to anything I could get from an herbivore. "You know? I don't think Mr Mountain Lion's gonna like your idea of playing."

"Tough! I want me some cat!" I grinned and sprinted off into the trees at full speed. Behind me, Jake phased back into his wolf form and set off after me.

Being full of blood after going ten days without made me realise how flat I'd been feeling. It was like someone had given me a fresh set of batteries. My mood was up, I felt physically strong and buoyed by my successful escape from the Volturi, there was a new air of confidence about me. Jess noticed it, everyone noticed it, but most especially; Ricky noticed it. He'd noticed other things too and was staking his claim on what was his; making sure that everyone knew that I was with him. In that, he was beginning to rival Dad for the title of Most Over-Protective Person of the Year.

Things at least were better with Mom and Dad and on Tuesday night, as I set off for rehearsal, Mom called with the news that Christmas would be in Denali this year, for a celebration. Tanya was getting married. I didn't have time to talk, I was running late; but it seemed that I wasn't the only vampire currently dating a human. Tanya had been seeing Brad for the last couple of years and knowing full well what she was, had proposed to her. A Christmas wedding was on the cards, as was a conversion. Brad's first act as a husband would be to endure the three day transformation process to be a vampire like his wife. We would all be there for it and to welcome him into his new… was life the right word?

The Denali clan were vegetarians like us and spending Christmas there would give me the opportunity to settle a score with Jasper from last year. I had a snowball fight to win!

There was no word yet from The Shed, but it was early days. We worked on some new songs and after the tension of last week's rehearsals it was good to have some fun again. Dan had brought me some tracks from female vocalists that he liked; curious to see if any would be suitable for us to do. The plan was that once we had enough original material, we'd drop other people's songs; but in the meantime it was good to listen to the obscure tracks that Dan and Zak brought for me to listen to. We were getting the measure of each other now and really working well together as a band. Jasper would have been proud of me, he'd taught me how to play the guitar a while back and on a couple of the songs, I picked up Dan's spare electro-acoustic and played some rhythm guitar to compliment his leading. I was a little out of practice, but I did it.

While the rest of them went across to Frederick's for coffee, Ricky and I did what Ricky and I always did on Tuesday and Thursday nights: We went and sat in his car. If I thought the repercussions of Saturday night were going to be limited to a Police caution, a familial roasting, a visit from the Volturi and any possible future ear-bending from Aunt Rose, I was sadly mistaken. Ricky had discovered that there was more to me than met the eye and to get to the 'more' meant that he had to get me out of my clothes. Where I had been comfortable with things up until now, I began to find hands in places that I had to gently remove them from and buttons that I had to re-do. He'd clearly been paying more attention than I'd given him credit for on Saturday night.

Jess lived her life wrapped up in an imaginary relationship with a fictional vampire. No guy she could find matched up to the ideal that, to her, Alric represented. Save perhaps this Randall guy. Jess didn't want to concern herself with boys in real life, maintaining that they were only after one thing and she wasn't giving it to them. I knew that about Ricky now and he wasn't going to get it either. That was a line I did not want to cross.

It was hard at times to escape the intense personal relationships of my family. There had been times when I'd seen and heard things I'm sure my parents had rather I hadn't - sometimes involving them - which was awkward. Sex could be a very physical thing for us and as vampires were much stronger than humans, I risked inflicting serious damage on any human partner I may have or becoming the Praying Mantis of Forks. It was a complete no no. I was going to have to be firm with Ricky, but that wasn't, I suspected, going to stop him trying.

The unease I felt over my last conversation with Dad still lingered and it got stronger as the week progressed. I turned it over and over in my mind; he'd definitely suggested that it was odd that I didn't feel anything for Jake and he'd assumed that I would. Did this have anything to do with the time that Jake and Mom had been together while Dad had been away? The interruption of Monday and the relentless rest of the week, meant that I hadn't managed to ask Grampa about what he'd started to speak about. He'd said they had been a horrible few months and said that Jake had saved the day. I speculated that I was some sort of bargain Jake and Dad had struck on his return: 'Give me my girl back and in return you can have my daughter (if I ever produce one – not likely – oh I did! There you go Jake; Bella junior)'. It sounded like something out of a fairy tale.

My hunt with Jake that week was awkward. Despite our relaxed team-work of Monday, by Friday, with me having spent the week stewing over the comments Dad had made, I was back to keeping Jake at arms length and having minimal interaction. There were no mountain lions to be had tonight and I returned home well before midnight, having consumed my usual couple of elk. I wasn't going to speak to Jake about this imprinting thing and he'd never said anything to me about it either. But I needed to know what it was and why it was such a big deal to Dad. There was only one place I could go to ask about that.

Saturday was Jess and Dan's 17th birthday. The weather did not get the memo and rain poured persistently from the skies. Last weekend's party felt like seven years ago, not seven days. Jess and Dan were spending the day at home and in the evening, the family were going into Port Angeles for dinner. I called by with Jess's card and the gift that I'd bought her. It was a book on vampire folklore that she'd wanted. I'd flicked through it and found everything to be fantastically wrong, so I was more than happy to wrap it up and stick a pretty ribbon on it.

The house was in chaos. Work had started on their kitchen and I'd only meant to stay a few minutes, but Susie insisted I stay for lunch. I wasn't hungry, I rarely was the day after I'd hunted; but I managed to force down a sandwich, to appease Susie's concern that I might waste away through lack of food.

After lunch, I drove the few miles out to La Push and pulled up outside the pretty cabin that was Emily and Sam's house. If there was anyone who could help me shed light on this, it was Emily. Sam and Leah may have been in a relationship, but when Emily came along, it was game over. Fate, destiny or whatever this thing was, had intervened. Emily was Sam's ideal mate and he had imprinted on her. I thought of Leah and could not help admitting that if fate had picked out Sam's wife for him; that she'd picked well.

I got out of the car and even through the rain I could smell that Emily had been baking. I ran across to the porch and knocked on the door. Through it I heard the sound of happy children and Emily remonstrating with them to not tease the cat. It was Sam who opened the door.

"Ness! What a surprise!"

"Hi Sam, it's not inconvenient is it?"

"Not at all, come in." Sam was tall and broad with the same cropped dark hair as Jake had. I walked into to the brightly painted, beautifully arranged home. It was clean and tidy, but not a museum, where you felt uncomfortable just looking at the furniture. "So how are you? We haven't seen you for ages. How are Edward and Bella?"

"They're fine, thank you."

"I heard about the party. You need to be careful Ness."

I nodded. "I've learned my lesson about that."

"Good. Would you like coffee?"

"Please."

"Sit down, make yourself at home and I'll get you some. I'll tell Em you're here." Sam called to Emily who appeared a few minutes later with her younger child, Ethan balanced on her hip. She was very pregnant; the baby was only a couple of weeks away now but she showed no signs of fatigue.

"Nessie! How wonderful to see you! Excuse me, Ethan needs a diaper change. Did Sam get you coffee?

"I'm doing it!" Sam called from the kitchen.

"Thanks honey! I'll be back in a minute, Ness. Come on Mr Stinky."

As Emily departed, Sam returned and handed me the coffee.

"So what brings you down here then?"

"I… er… wanted to talk to Emily about something."

"Oh, girl stuff?" I nodded. "Best make myself scarce then!" His eyes twinkled in amusement and I thought back to my birthday on the cliff top with Leah, when she'd said that Sam had wanted me killed at birth. Jake was right, there was no trace of that now. Sam and Emily could not be more welcoming. "Did Jake tell you that I'm giving up leading the pack?"

"No?" There were two packs of wolves in La Push and Sam and Jake were their respective Alpha's.

"It's the right time to call it a day. With your family gone, there's no need for so many of us and with baby number three about to make their appearance, I figured it was time for me to quit."

"Who is going to lead your pack?"

"Jared. Hey, did you know that Kim is pregnant?" Kim was Jared's wife; they had got married three years ago.

"No."

"We're so happy for them. It took a while; I think they were beginning to worry there might be something wrong. Thankfully it all came down to mother nature just taking her time." There was so much I didn't know about my Quileute friends anymore. I'd once spent a lot of time here, back when Jake and I were friends. Kim was nice, if a little offhand with me at times. Relations between the vampires and the wolves had not always been as cordial as they were now and some of them had difficulty with the ease with which I and the rest of my family came and went. Emily came back into the room.

"Glad that's done!"

"I'll go entertain Will and Ethan. Ness has come to talk to you about girl stuff."

"Ah!" Emily gave me a knowing smile. Sam kissed her and disappeared off to the back of the house. Emily sat down, wedging a cushion behind her back. She was beautiful; the only imperfection she possessed were the three gashes running down her face and arm which were the legacy of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"Girl stuff? Hasn't Mom had a talk with you?"

"Not that girl stuff, it's more… wolf stuff."

"Ok. Well, shoot. What's your problem?"

"Before I start, I really don't want any of this to get back to Jake, so could you…?"

"Of course, I won't say anything to Sam."

"I was talking to Dad on Monday and he was concerned that Jake and I weren't spending time together anymore. He also asked if I had romantic feelings for Jake. I don't. I really like him as a friend, but nothing more. I have a boyfriend and…"

"You have a boyfriend? Since when?" Emily stared at me, stunned.

"We've been together six weeks. Why?"

"I'm not surprised that Edward's questioning your feelings for Jake."

"Why? Does it have anything to do with this imprinting?"

"It has everything to do with imprinting, Jake has imprinted on you. You're supposed to be with him, you're not supposed to be with anyone else, ever!" Emily was looking at me in disbelief.

"I'm supposed to be with Jake? As in, with Jake, as in boyfriend girlfriend?" Now it was my turn to look stunned.

"Yes! Hasn't anyone explained it to you?"

"No!"

"Well you were very young when it happened; maybe they thought you'd always been aware of it. Edward didn't pick it up?"

"That's why he was concerned. He said that he used to be able to detect possessiveness in my thoughts toward Jake, but that they weren't there any more. That's when he asked me if I felt anything for him. When did Jake imprint on me?"

"Very early, you were only minutes old."

"Minutes? He had romantic feelings for me when I was minutes old!"

"No Ness! That's not what imprinting's about at that age, or else everyone would be asking questions of Quil's attachment to Claire."

"Quil imprinted on Claire?"

"Yes!" Emily said, in that way people have when they think you're being dumb.

"I didn't know."

"We keep it secret. The world would not understand their relationship. She's nine years old, at this stage it's platonic, but the bond is as strong as mine is with Sam. I can't understand why yours is not there anymore, it should be. You should have with Jake the platonic relationship that Quil has with Claire."

"How old was Claire when Quil imprinted on her?"

"She was two. It caused a bit of a scandal at the time, but the guys see it, it makes sense to them.

"Ness, I can't explain how or why your link to Jake has broken, other than I know it shouldn't have. I haven't seen Jake for a while, so I can't tell you if there's a problem on his side too. Did anything happen between you two that you think might be the reason for this?"

"No. I've hardly spoken to him to have anything happen at all. We just see each other Friday nights when I hunt."

"And this boyfriend, how do you feel about him? Do you feel possessive of him?"

"Not particularly. He's nice, but I don't turn to mush when he's not around and I don't feel the need to attack other girls when they speak to him."

"There's no particular connection then, it's just a normal relationship?"

I shrugged. "I don't know what a normal relationship is, he's my first boyfriend."

"This is so confusing. You really should not be with this guy. What's his name?"

"Ricky."

"I really don't know what's happened, but it sounds like the connection's broken. Maybe it's because you're vampire and not fully human. Maybe the connection isn't as strong for you. Oh poor Jake!"

"What do you mean 'poor Jake'?"

"Irrespective of how you feel, there'll never be anyone else for him other than you. He's connected to you irrevocably. He can't love anybody else."

"Ever?"

"Not in the way he loves you, no."

"He loves me?"

"As sure and as strongly as Sam loves me, Jake loves you. You are his destiny. You're the one for him."

"And I don't have any choice in the matter?"

"It's not about choice, it's about knowing who is right for you, but I suppose, if you want to look at it that way, then, no you don't have a choice. Imprinting selects your perfect mate and takes all the hassle out of dating." She smiled. "I knew Sam was the right one for me instantly. Kim did with Jared; Rachel did with Paul and Anna with Seth. In time, Claire will with Quil. But in your case, it looks like you do have a choice. You'd know it in here if you loved him." Emily brought her fist up to her chest. "If you really loved Jake the way I love Sam, it would hurt you to be apart from him for even the slightest amount of time. It hurts Sam to be apart from me. Jake must be made of strong stuff to only see you once a week."

I didn't reply. I recalled what Leah had said about Jake on the cliff top.

"Stupid imprinted fool!"

Jake was, according to Emily, bound to me in a way I couldn't understand or reciprocate, even if I wanted to. He was tied to me like a puppy to a lamp post. Thinking about the inevitability of it all, maybe that wasn't the right analogy. I could suddenly feel every ounce of Jake around me, weighing me down in the way a battleship anchor might weigh down a butterfly. I couldn't breathe, I needed to get out! I jumped up.

"Thanks for spending the time Emily, it's been good to get things straightened out."

"Are you sure you're ok? You don't look good. I'm concerned about this, are you sure you won't let me speak to Sam about it?"

"No, please don't tell Sam! I'm fine, I just need to get back. I have some jobs to do for Sue and Charlie." Emily started to get up. "No, don't get up, I'll see myself out."

I said goodbye and ran back out into the rain to my car, starting the engine and pulling away without succumbing to the urge to floor it out of the reservation. I drove past Billy and Jake's house staring straight ahead.

If what Emily had said was true, then Jake was a fixed point from which I could never escape. My life had been all mapped out before I had even got through my first hour. My life suddenly felt much like the road from La Push back to Forks did. Tree-lined, impenetrable, hemmed in; you could only go to your destination, no deviation to the right or the left was possible. It was a one-way street. I flicked on my mp3 player and hit shuffle. A track started, one of the many Dan had given me in recent weeks. I looked at the display, it said XTC - Making Plans for Nigel and I found unsettling parallels between the lyrics of the song and my own life. At the end of the song I started it again and replaced Nigel's name with my own.

We're only making plans for Nessie

Nessie's whole future is as good as sealed.

Not if I had anything to do with it.

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