CHAPTER TEN

I turned to my brothers in the kitchen. The Cullens had remained stoic and calm throughout this entire process, and now was no exception. "I think we should go home," Dan said. "It's late, and I think they've got everything under control here."

"Thank you for your help," Andrea said, standing up.

"Thank you," Dan said. "You totally destroyed it. Pre-med my ass, you're totally a doctor."

Andrea laughed. "I'm ballsy," she said. "And that is all."

"That's all you need," Adam said. "Ever."

"She's got a lot of nerve," Zach added, smiling at Andrea. He looked at her like I looked at Kat. "I'm only like a lot proud."

"Be a lot proud," Dan said. "She deserves it."

"Guys," Andrea said, drawing out the word. "Stop."

We chose to stay in human form for our run home, sticking close together. The rain was half a monsoon, but it felt good washing all the blood and mud off of us. Just as we were walking in the back door, something stopped me in my tracks. I heard the undeniable sound of bare feet slapping the muddy ground. The pace was slow, but much too fast for a human.

"Dan," I said, and he was already walking back out the door.

"I hear," he said. "Just wait."

For the longest minute of my life, I stood outside our back door with my brothers. Kat was at the door, ready to run out and help. I put myself between her and whoever was coming. The footsteps stopped, and my strong eyes searched through the rain and dark for whoever it was out there.

I don't know what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn't the small young woman that slowly eased herself out of the woods. She was in a ripped up, holey t-shirt, and shorts that were soaking wet and muddy. She was filthy, and looked like she hadn't showered in a year. She looked terrified, and a little crazed.

"What are you?" she asked, and her voice sounded hoarse, like she hadn't used it in a while. Her eyes were scanning all of us quickly, and she looked like she was about to run. Her eyes paused on Dan, and she suddenly fell to the ground.

"Holy shit," Landon said, moving toward her. We all followed, even Kat. Melanie would be fine for a moment.

"Relax," Dan said as we got to her, and he fell to his knees. His voice sounded different. "I just imprinted on her."

"Fuck," Justin said. "What is she?"

"I'm going to assume she is a human that turns into one of those bears that we saw tonight," Dan said. He sounded like he was in shock. "And apparently, she imprinted on me too." While he was talking, he had pulled her head into his lap, and tilted her head back so her airway was open. He was kind of smiling at her.

"Ari?" a small voice called from behind us. I turned to look behind me, and saw a small group of girls half hiding behind the trees. They were standing close together, their clothes filthy and tattered. They had long, tangled, dirty hair, and were covered in mud. The rain was still absolutely pouring.

Even after all I had seen in the last year of my life, this moment is still number one on my list of weird things. At approximately the same time, every one of those girls hit the ground hard. They passed out, cold. Kat let out a startled scream, and I couldn't help but agree with her feeling.

"What the fuck," I said. "Did you all just imprint on these things?"

"I did," Landon said. "Without a doubt."

The others gave their concurrence, and I put my hands on my hips. Now what was I supposed to do?

I turned to look at Kat. She shrugged, her eyes wide, reading my mind. "Well then," I said, deciding what our next move should be. "Let's get them inside."

I turned and walked back into the house, Kat jogging in a few steps in front of me. She dashed upstairs to linen closet, and came back down with some sheets. She spread them out over the carpet in the living room, and I helped her. The boys stumbled in, each carrying a girl. They laid them down on the sheets, and sat there, right next to them. Kat and I stared at each other, and I knew I could relate to how they were feeling.

"Well," Kat said eventually. "They smell like woods." The silence that followed was strong, and pensive.

"I didn't think it was like this," Dan said after a moment. "Never. Not after hearing this feeling described a million times, I didn't think it would be like this. I feel like I'm linked to her so completely I couldn't change it if I wanted to. Which I don't…"

"It's like you're connected by a steel bar," I said, giving him words.

"And if it breaks I'll die," Dan said. "It's terrifying."

"Exactly," I said.

"Wait until you actually know their names. Or anything about them for that matter," Kat said. "It gets a lot stronger."

"She's hurt," Justin said, and for such an outgoing boy, his voice was soft, and scared.

I looked at where he was staring. Her leg was sliced open by what looked like claws.

"She is too," Ricky said, and the girl he was with had a bite taken out of her leg. I cringed when I realized I had done that.

"They're not deep," I said. I went to the kitchen and grabbed two towels, throwing one to each of them. "Just cover them and apply pressure."

Suddenly, Ari started to stir. Dan pulled his hand away from her head, and her eyes flew open. The next few minutes were a little hectic as the girls started to wake up, but eventually, the boys got their story out, and the girls sat and listened. They looked confused, but not scared. They trusted the boys; every particle in their beings told them to. When Dan finished explaining to them who we were and what had happened, all of the girls looked at Ari. I noted that they were looking at her the same way we looked at Dan, and the way all of the wolves looked at Jacob. Actually, everyone looked at Jacob that way. Some people were just born to lead I guess.

"Well," Ari said after a moment. "Your story is not much different than ours." She blinked. "We are Kootenai Native Americans, from Flathead, Montana." She shook her head. "But we haven't been back there for over ten years…. Our families abandoned us when we first shifted. It was pretty dramatic, I almost killed my older brother. I was the first one…" Ari said. "But the other's followed within a year. There are no boys. We aren't positive of why, but over the years we've come up with the idea that we descend from our first female chief. There are legends of her leaving to protect the tribe, and though they never actually mention anything about a bear, we've inferred it." She sighed. "We've shifted back twice in the last ten years, but otherwise, we just wander. We hunt, we sleep, we run. We've been all over, but never here." She was surprisingly calm. "I've never seen anything like you…. And you terrified us." She shook her head again. "I don't know who it was we attacked, but know that it was because we felt threatened. It was defensive, not offensive. This is our lifestyle. Or was…" she looked at Dan. "I can't ever leave you." She looked away from him. "Sorry, that was creepy."

"It's alright," Dan said. "I think we can all relate."

Ari smiled, and I could see how beautiful she was. Nothing compared to my Kat, but pretty none the less. "Girls," she said, turning away from Dan again. "I don't know what's going on, but I think we're going to be okay."

"You're going to be happy," Ricky said. "I'm going to make you happy." He was staring at a still unnamed girl.

"You sure are," I said, and it seemed like the girls had just realized I was there. "What are your names?" I asked the other girls.

"I'm Scarlette," the girl sitting next to Adam said. She looked about twenty, with long eyelashes and pointed features. He smiled at the sound of her name.

"Ava," said a short girl with a quiet voice. Her hand was grasping Ricky's for dear life. She was small, but her eyes held wisdom.

"I'm Valerie," said a lanky girl with a few freckles on her cheeks. She was side by side with Landon.

"I'm Evelyn," said the girl next to Scott. She held her head up, and looked proud. She was a little terrifying, but her voice was gentle.

"I'm Zoey," said a girl with a high pitched voice. Her eyes were a caramel color, light for a Native American. She was staring at Alex.

"Lilah," said a girl who must have been even shorter than Ava. Her voice was louder though, and her expression bright. She smiled at Brian, and he smiled back.

"I'm Hannah," said a girl sitting next to Robert, and her voice reminded me of a teacher's. She was shining from the inside out.

"Nia," said a younger looking girl. Her features were less defined, but she must have been about seventeen when she changed. She was small but strong, like Paige. She was staring at Corey.

"I'm Cambria," said the girl who was with Justin. "But you can call me Cami."

"Alright then," I said. "Now that we have some names, I'm Zeke, and this is Kat." I pointed at Kat, and she grabbed my hand. Right on cue, Melanie woke up from her dreamland and started crying. "And that," I said. "Is our daughter Melanie."

"Oh my…" said Hannah. "How old?"

"Four months," Kat said with a smile.

"Precious," Hannah said. She smiled a little. "I had a niece that age right before I shifted. I guess she'd be ten now though."

Kat smiled brightly at her. "You can meet her in the morning if you want." She looked around the room. "But it looks like you guys have a lot to talk about, and we've got a screaming baby to deal with. We bid you adieu until morning, and wish you luck." I let Kat pull me up the stairs a little ways, but she stopped suddenly and turned back around. "And no one get pregnant!" she added, and then we continued up the stairs. The silence below us was awkward, but that's the way we liked it.

Kat fed Melanie while I wiped the mud off my legs from that night, and we both fell into bed at the same time. I pulled her close, and we listened to the quiet chatter downstairs. "I didn't see this one coming," I whispered.

Kat scoffed. "No one did," she said. "But it's three am, I'm exhausted, and Mel will be awake in about five hours if we're lucky. Let's give them the night to sort themselves out, and we'll call over to Jacob's in the morning to let him know what happened."

"Good plan," I said, kissing her nose. "I love you."

"I love you too."

It turns out that we weren't so lucky, and Melanie was up and cooing in her crib by seven the next morning. I woke up before Kat, and I grabbed Melanie and headed downstairs so Kat could get a little more sleep. I heard silence from downstairs, and when I got to the living room, I saw that everyone had stayed pretty much where they were from the night previous. The girls were still on the sheets that Kat had laid out, and the boys next to them. Dan and Ari were holding hands in their sleep, and I smiled. I turned Melanie so she was on my shoulder, and she rested her head there. I kissed her as I walked her into the kitchen, and she cooed at me.

"That's my girl," I said as I rocked her. Her little body fit perfectly into the crook of my arm, and her head into the base of my neck. "I love you," I whispered to her.

I heard stirring in the other room as I warmed up Melanie's morning bottle. I sat down in one of the kitchen chairs, and laid Mel across my legs. She fussed because she couldn't see around her anymore, but quieted as soon as the bottle was in between her lips. "There," I said. "Now what's all that crying for?"

She worked hard on her bottle, and I heard someone get up from the living room. Lilah was cautiously peeking around the corner to kitchen. "Good morning," I said quietly. "Lilah right?"

She nodded. "And you're Zeke." She took one step closer to us. "Is that your daughter?"

"Yep," I said. "This is our little Melanie."

Lilah smiled. "I forgot how small babies are." She was still standing awkwardly by the doorway.

"Do you want to hold her?" I asked her.

She shook her head. "Oh no," she said. "I might drop her."

"Eh," I said. "She's survived for four months with those nuts in there," I jerked my thumb toward the living room. "You can't do too much harm." I put the images of Cade from the night previous out of my mind, recognizing that things were different now.

"Are you sure?" she asked.

"Positive," I said. "Just take a seat."

She pulled out the chair next to me and sat down, staring at Melanie. I pulled Melanie up into the crook of my arm, and held the bottle with my other hand. I gently shifted her into Lilah's arms, and Mel didn't even react. Lilah looked terrified, but she was doing fine. "There," I said. "You're doing fine!"

"She's so small," Lilah said.

"She's twice the size she was when she was born," I commented.

She smiled at Melanie who was still sucking furiously on her bottle. "My dad used to call me his loud little Lilah."

I chuckled. "Are you normally loud?" I asked.

She didn't say anything for a moment. "Well," she said. "I hadn't spoken for about five years until last night. And before that, it was another five years ago."

"Wow," I said.

"But yes," she said. "Before I changed I was pretty loud."

Brian poked his head around the corner of the kitchen. "Good morning," he said.

"Good morning," Lilah and I said.

"Is Zeke already putting you to work?" Brian asked her.

She chuckled. "Oh no," she said. "I wanted to."

"She's doing great," I said. I heard a creak in the stairs, and the next moment Kat was in the kitchen with us.

"Hello," she said. She looked at Melanie in Lilah's arms. "Well," she said. "You look like a natural."

"I have no idea what I'm doing," Lilah said.

"Exactly," Kat and I said at the same time, and then smiled at each other.

"We haven't known what we're doing for the last four months," Kat explained.

"Ah," Lilah said. "I can imagine."

"Do you want breakfast?" Brian asked Lilah.

"I'm fine," Lilah said.

Brian turned and looked at her. "Breakfast it is then." He opened up the refrigerator and started digging through it. "Do you like eggs?" he asked.

"I don't remember," Lilah said.

"Then," Brian said, not even sounding surprised. "We'll just have to try some." Brian pulled out the five cartons of the eggs we had and started cracking them into a bowl. "Scrambled for everyone?"

"Yes please," Kat said.

The others were slowly waking up and filtering into the kitchen. The girls kind of hung back a little, but food brings people together. Melanie was very curious about all the people in the kitchen this morning, and she spent the majority of it sitting on Dan's lap staring at everyone. The eggs Brian made were fantastic, and I definitely ate my fill.

"So," Dan said as we were all finishing up. "What do you think?"

Ari looked at him, and then at the other girls. "About what?" she asked.

"All of it," he answered.

"Well," Ari said. "From the two rooms I've seen, you have a very nice house…" she trailed off and laughed. "And a pretty weird life. But its stable, and you seem to spend most of your time as humans, so…. It's better than whatever we were doing."

"Does that mean you're going to stay with us?" Dan asked, and I could tell he sounded eager.

Ari laughed. "I can't speak for them," she said. "But I wouldn't want to be anywhere else."

Ari looked at Scarlette. "Same," she said with a shrug. The other girls concurred as well.

"Then you'll stay," Dan said with a smile.

"Yes," Ari said. She looked happy, but a little nervous. "But we want to pull our weight around here."

"Definitely," Nia said, speaking up.

"You will," Dan said. "It will all come with time."

"Hey," I said. "Lilah already started. She fed the baby this morning."

Lilah laughed. "Right, because that was so much work."

"Its work I didn't do," I said.

"I'm so excited!" Justin said, jumping up and down where he was standing.

Everyone laughed, and we continued with our breakfast. "The good news is," Kat said as we were helping clean up. "There's a ton of clothes up in our closet that didn't fit me, and might fit some of you."

Valerie, who was standing next to us, looked down at her clothes. "Oh my gosh," she said. "I haven't worn clothes in a decade, but this is entirely not presentable. I'm sorry!"

Kat chuckled. "You're fine," she said. "I've looked a lot worse than that in this house."

"Still," Ava said quietly. "We're dirtying up your house."

"No worries," Kat said. "Which brings me to my second point: you guys can shower here if you want. If you use the bathroom I do, there's some flowery girl soap and lotion in there."

Ari laughed a little, sounding surprised. "It's been a decade since I've showered. Flowery girl soap is really exciting me right now."

Kat laughed. "It would excite me. I have at least ten disposable razors if you want to shave your legs."

"Holy shit I forgot that we were supposed to do that," Scarlette said.

"And your pits," Kat said. "Just in case you needed a reminder." The other girls laughed, and I smiled at my Kat. She handed me Melanie. "Come on upstairs," she said to the girls. "I feel like you're all about to get a lot more beautiful."

I heard the water turn on a little bit later. "Well," I said. "They're going to be up there for a while." I looked down at Melanie. "It's just you here to keep us in line. It's just you." I tickled her stomach, poking her nose, and she giggled. "That's daddy's good girl," I said, kissing her. "You get to hang out with all the boys."

Dan smiled at me. "That baby has been yours from the beginning," he said.

I nodded my head, giving him an eyebrow raise. "I decided that she would be, so she is."

Dan nodded, pensive. "I think I understand why you ran yourself ragged during Kat's pregnancy now."

I cocked an eyebrow at him and smirked. "I'll bet you do." I bounced Melanie in my arms and she gurgled.

"I feel like she is a very long way away from me right now," Robert said.

"That doesn't go away," I told him. "You just get a better head about it."

"Out of arm's reach is too far," Corey added.

"Exactly," I said. I put Melanie in the playpen we had in the living room, and gave her a toy. "We should call Jacob."

"Oh yeah," Dan said. "People exist outside of this house."

"Yes," I said. "And one of them is waking up with over a hundred stitches in him."

"Thanks for keeping it real," Dan said. "You guys, get in here, we're doing this together."

"Bossy," Adam commented.

"You'd better believe it," Dan said without hesitation. "It's in my makeup. Oldest child."

"I see," said Adam. "I'll be interested to see who is more stubborn, you or Ari. She seems like she's a lot like you."

"She is," Dan said with a smile. He had his phone out now and put it on speaker. It rang three times before Nessie answered.

"Hello?" she said.

"Nessie," Dan said. "You've got all of us. How are they?"

"Nick and Bryce actually just left. They are limping pretty heavily and will be in bed for a while, but they made it home."

"Glad to hear it," Dan said. "What about your guys?"

"They're trucking along," Nessie said. "Marah is still here, even though her parents left. If you've never seen a one-year-old sitting still, now is your chance."

"Yeah?" Dan asked.

"Yeah," Nessie said. "Cade's happier with her here anyway. His stiches hurt him pretty badly, but he says his head isn't nearly as awful as it was last night."

"That's good," Dan said. "And Jacob?"

"Well, his ribs are broken, so he'll be out of commission for a few days. He's pulling through though."

"You are surprisingly calm," Dan said.

"I'm pretty sure that's a compliment," Nessie said. "But it's because I didn't sleep last night. You have mistaken exhaustion for calmness. I've been freaking out every ten minutes."

"Okay," Dan said. "As long as that is cleared up. Do you think we could talk to Jacob?"

"Sure," Nessie said. I heard a slight shuffling noise.

"Hello," Jacob said, and his voice sounded gruff.

"You hanging in there chief?" Dan asked.

"Sure sure," Jacob said. "But Nessie really is freaking out every ten minutes. I've been trying to get her to lay down, but she won't. Thank god her family is here, they're working on her now."

"Leave her with Jasper," Adam said. "That'll knock her out."

"That's the goal," Jacob said.

"So," Dan said. "You will never guess what happened to us last night."