So, i'm still not getting many reviews, but i have so much written that i figured i'd just upload another chapter anyways. Thanks to those of you who did review, i really appreciate the feeback!
this isn't one of my favorite chapters, but it's pretty important to the main story.
disclaimer is in chapter two, it hasn't moved
~wwsadd
New Information
Sarah returned the next morning, to find me in the same position I had been sitting in all night. I don't think I'd as much as blinked in the previous six hours. There was a lot for me to sort through, not to mention, I had to figure out what to do about my parents, who would undoubtedly figure out something was up unless I came up with a very convincing lie, and fast.
"Nessie?" Sarah asked, throwing her bag on the desk and shutting the door. "Have you slept at all?"
I shook my head. "Well class starts in fifteen minutes…" She said, and I could tell she was starting to get concerned. "Oh my goodness, what happened to your wrists?"
I glanced down. I must have dislocated my left wrist when I fell. It was light purple, and it did not contrast well with my pale skin. Shrugging, I finally moved. "Oh, I fell down last night." I said, going over to my closet and gingerly pulling on a heavy hoodie, with 'Dartmouth' proclaimed across the front. "I'm not going to class." I added.
"You fell down?" She asked incredulously. "And what do you mean you aren't going to class? What the hell happened last night? I'm going to kill Reid." She growled.
That snapped me out of my reverie. "What? No! Reid hasn't done anything wrong!"
Sarah looked at me condescendingly. "I don't buy that for a second."
I took a deep breath. "Sit down." I ordered. She gave me a dirty look. "No, I'm serious, sit down. And I'll tell you about last night. But only if you promise to keep your mouth shut." She sat, and nodded. "I mean it. You have to swear on… Caleb's life." I decided.
She looked half confused, half angry. "Damn it, I swear, just tell me!" She snapped.
"Last night was the most perfect night of my life, until Reid dropped me off. Someone showed up in the room." I said. I took another deep breath. "Remember you swore not to tell anyone." She nodded impatiently. "Someone by the name of Chase Collins." I mumbled.
She was on her feet, having the biggest panic attack in the history of the world. She opened her mouth and then shut it again. Pacing faster and faster across our small room, I thought she was going to pass out. "Uh… Sarah?" I asked hesitantly.
"Oh my god. Nessie, this was supposed to be over! You should never have been dragged into this mess. I'm so sorry." She said, tears of panic starting to run down her face. She coughed a couple times. "I don't even know what to do. Damn it, last time Caleb almost died. I mean…" She clapped her hands over her mouth, realizing that she had said too much.
"Yeah, I got a pretty comprehensive look at "last time"." I said, using my fingers to make quotes around her words. "It looks like you all had a pretty close call. That Chase has an odd sense of humor."
She swallowed. "He told you? How much? Did he say what he was up to this time?" She fired off questions.
"Well… he showed me. A burning barn, a motorcycle flipping and hitting a tree… he explained that he wanted what he called 'the Power' and that if all the guys… willed? Their power to him then he would be indestructible, and he wouldn't die. Then he said that they didn't deserve to have it because they were too weak to use it. That was mostly all I caught before he disappeared into thin air. He said that I should warn them- but I figure, why play right into his hands?" I finished my tirade and collapsed on my bed- the sleepless night finally catching up to me.
Sarah collapsed too. She buried her head in her hands. "This was supposed to be over. Caleb said it was done. He's back. God, I can't believe he's back." Then she looked up at me and took a deep breath. "Are you okay? Me and Kate never managed to escape a meeting with Chase unscathed."
I shrugged. "I'm fine. I fell down and hurt my wrist, but no big deal. He thought I was "quite something". I think he got a kick out of me telling him to go to hell." I scoffed.
Sarah looked like she wanted to laugh. "You told Chase Collins to go to hell?"
"Among other things. None of which were too nice, but I didn't appreciate the invasion of privacy. Oh yeah, and he was threatening to kill my friends. That didn't put me in the best mood either." I growled.
It was oddly relieving to finally have someone to worry with. "No wonder Reid is so crazy about you, you're a total badass." Sarah said, pulling herself to her feet. I laughed. "Okay, so I'm assuming you want to know what's going on, right?"
"Well, yeah, that'd be nice, but like I said, we aren't telling the guys about this, at least not yet. Not until we have a plan." I said resolutely.
Surprisingly she agreed with me. "I know. I can't even imagine how horrible it's going to be. That's the last thing in the whole world I ever wanted to have to tell Caleb."
The next two hours we sat in our room, while she explained to me as much as she understood about what was going on. Apparently Caleb's dad willed him what was left of his power, when he was fighting Chase, which was the only reason he was able to win. Chase had stolen his father's power when he was younger- and was the definition of power hungry. The more they used the harder it was for them to stop, and if they willed it away, it was like willing away their life. From the sounds of it, Reid had been really bad about it, and they had all worried about him- but he cut way back when Caleb and Sarah almost died. Tyler was the only one that hadn't Ascended yet, but even with all four of them fighting, Chase was willing to break ancient laws that the Covenant had set down. Laws the boys would die before they broke. It would be nowhere near a fair fight, and they had really hoped that Chase had been done for after that fire.
"Wow. So we need a new plan. One that is better than 'Caleb and Reid go meet Chase and get their asses handed to them'." I said.
Sarah agreed. "I'll call Kate; get her in on this too. Pogue felt like he had to tell her after everything that happened last year. It made them closer. When we first met Chase, he actually tricked Kate into becoming friends with him. It scared the living hell out of Pogue. She doesn't know much more than I do, but I figure the more input the better." She said.
I nodded. I excused myself and went to the library, I had some apologies to make, and in the midst of all the uncertainty, I had to make sure that they didn't go unsaid. The phone rang once, twice.
"Seth's phone, Leah speaking." A bored girl's voice said.
"Hey Leah, is Seth around? It's Nessie." I added.
"Oh, hey Ness. Seth is currently running patrols. He has to keep the pack in line while our fearless pack leader is off chasing ghosts, or whatever is so important that he fails to check in most weeks." She said. I stiffened.
"Ghosts? Why would… never mind, I have too much other stuff to worry about- I don't even want to know. I just really needed to apologize to Seth for the way I've been acting, I was really out of line, and I didn't mean to take my frustration out on him… And I wanted to apologize to Jake too, I know I was really unfair- I know he's doing what he needs to do." I said, diffusing my voice with as much regret as I had.
"Seth's had worse, trust me. He only got mad because he agrees with you. Jake's been gone too long, it's not fair to any of us. My brother feels like he needs to defend him till the world ends, and it's hard to do when he really wants to just track him down and confront him. But I'll pass on the messages for you. I'm sure you'll hear from Seth again soon- he's gonna be pissed that he missed your call!" She said, somewhat gleefully. Usually Leah irritated me a little bit- but her dark humor reflected exactly how I felt at the moment.
When I got back to the room, Kate threw herself at me. "I'm so sorry that you have to put up with this! We had no idea that it wasn't over!" She cried sobbingly.
I patted her back slowly. "It's alright, everything is going to be fine, the three of us are going to fix this, and the guys don't even have to know."
"You don't think we should tell them? What are we supposed to do? We have no power to fight him with." She pointed out.
"You know they're all going to panic if we tell them Chase is back- they'll rush head first into a fight they can't win." Sarah pointed out.
"And we may not be able to throw people across the room with our minds, but we are all smart enough to come up with some way to trick him. He's not going to expect us to fight back." I said resolutely.
Convinced, she nodded. "So what do we do?"
A few hours later, Kate's phone went off. "Hey Babe… Oh, no! I forgot. Sorry! Me n' Sarah n' Rainy are having a girls night, we could all use a night in. Oh yeah, we're having a ball. Painting each other's nails and swapping stories about our secretly sweet boyfriends… Ha ha. Yeah, you should be very scared, mister… Well we already knew Caleb was a whipped little pansy." She joked, dodging the pillow Sarah chucked at her. "Okay, we'll see you guys tomorrow, Love you!"
I stared at her, my mouth slightly open. "No one told me you were the world's best liar!" I said, and suddenly we all started laughing, despite the fact that we were still coming up empty.
We spent the whole night running through different plans. Each seemed worse than the last, and by three in the morning we were all about to pull our hair out. "There has got to be something we aren't thinking of!" Sarah said exasperatedly.
I had been debating for the last hour, and finally made up my mind. "Hey you guys?" I asked hesitantly.
Kate looked up sharply at my tone. "Yes?"
I took a deep breath. "I have a confession to make." Sarah looked like she couldn't take much more, but I needed to be completely honest. They both nodded for me to continue. "Don't freak out, okay?"
"What now?" Sarah moaned, but was silenced by another look from Kate.
"The boys aren't the only ones… who have secrets to protect. I have a lot more experience in magic than I let on, but only because I'd never met anyone that I could be honest with before." I said. "Hold out your hands." They both looked at me warily. "I'm not going to hurt you. Trust me; it's not that kind of power." I finished. They each held out their hands and I let mine hover over theirs.
I started at the beginning, glossing over some of the bloody vampire attacks, but showing them my parents' story. Briefly I shared images of my family, Jake and Seth included, and fragments of some of the other adventures they had had. Mostly I focused on how very good to the core we all were, and how overprotected I was from everything that could be deemed dangerous. I wanted them to see why I hadn't called my parents the minute Chase had appeared. I also showed them my conversation with Jasper- and what Chase had said in the car on the way there. I kept last night to myself. I didn't think they needed to hear everything that had been said and done.
When I pulled my hands back, I heard them both gasp. "Wow." Was all Sarah could say, and Kate was speechless.
"You are… a… vampire?" She finally managed to ask.
"Half vampire. There are only two of us in the whole world. But I'm not exceptionally powerful or anything. That little mind trick thing I just did was about the extent of my abilities. And unless we wanted to annoy Chase to death, I don't know how much I could do against him." I explained sadly, wishing for once in my life that I had been graced with an offensive gift.
"Information overload." Sarah muttered. "But what, you don't drink blood?" She asked, still looking a little cautious.
I laughed. "Nope, and I don't sleep in a coffin, obviously, garlic doesn't bother me, and crucifixes are actually kind of a joke in my family." I added as an afterthought. "Besides the immortality thing, and having a father that looks your age and can read your mind- and the werewolf best friend thing, I'm pretty normal."
They both laughed at that, breaking the tension. The rest of the night we talked about my history, my family, and the wolves. By the time the sun was rising the conversation switched to Reid, and I went into greater detail about what had happened the night before. I was again welcomed into the Sisterhood, as they called it. I understood their need for that- someone else that was in the exact same predicament, and had no desire to be anywhere else.
It had officially been forty-eight hours without sleep for me, and more than twenty four for Sarah and Kate, so when we got to Caleb's house that night, none of us had much in the way of energy. But we had decided to put the problem out of our minds for the night- we'd worry about it again tomorrow. We figured that if we didn't have a plan by the end of the weekend, I'd call Jasper. Though I didn't know how much good he'd do either, if Chase just set him on fire with his mind it wouldn't matter how good a fighter he was.