Chapter 10- Shadows of Imprints.

I am exhausted by the end of the school day, but when I get out to the car I am the only one there and I don't have a key. I lean against the door with a sigh.

Sarah materialises at my side, looking as bright and perky as she did when she kicked me by the lockers this morning. "How was your day Ren?"

I try to smile. "Good. Everyone was so nice!"

"I bet it's a big change from being homeschooled," Sarah laughs.

Oh, you have no idea! I laugh too. "Are you waiting on a ride?" I ask.

"My sister," Sarah explains. "She's a senior and she'll drive me home when she doesn't have math club." She makes a face and then notices the Mercedes I'm leaning against. "Whoa, sweet ride! Is that your parents' car or does it actually belong to one of your brothers or sisters?"

Wonder what she'd say about Rosalie's Lexus? "It's pretty nice," I say guardedly. "It's what we're driving to school at the moment, so we kind of share it."

"Well, it's sweet. I hear Will has a thing for you," Sarah says with an edge in her voice.

"What?" I don't blush, but I'm so embarrassed that I feel as though I should be. "Who said that?"

"Bailey said he was practically drooling over you during orchestra."

I blanch. "I wouldn't have said that." I look at her uncertainly. "Is he…do you like him?" Is this what I'm supposed to ask her? I want to know, but I don't know if I should ask or just wait to be told.

Sarah tosses her head. "Oh, Will's great. We've all been friends since elementary school…but no, it's not like I have a thing for him."

I'm not convinced by her words, but I'm saved from having to answer by Emmett's approach. He grins at us, and Sarah takes a hasty step backwards.

"Well, here's your brother coming," she says quickly. "I'll see you tomorrow Ren!"

Emmett chuckles as he reaches my side. "Well, she ran off in a hurry…"

I look at him and shake my head. "Do you deliberately try and scare people?"

"Not deliberately." Emmett stretches his arms up and all the muscles in his shoulders and back bulge beneath his t-shirt. He catches me watching and snaps his teeth at me. "Nice that they have a healthy respect for me though."

I roll my eyes and then, hearing the beep of the remote lock I open the car and slide into the backseat. A second later Rosalie is in the driver's seat, turned around to look at me.

"How was your first day?"

I shrug. "I'm not even sure," I say honestly. "It's so confusing, all these humans."

Rosalie laughs gently. "It will get easier," she tells me, leaning against Emmett as he softly kisses her temple and strokes her hair.

"She's already found herself an admirer," Edward informs Emmett and Rosalie, sliding in to the car beside me. He moves to kiss my forehead and I duck away.

"Shut up, nosy," I say in annoyance, as Rosalie raises her eyebrows at me and Emmett laughs.

"Christ, don't be like your dad!" Emmett exclaims. "No humans, Monster! Remember what you are!"

"You shut up too!" I say, furious. "You don't know anything about it!" I scrunch down in the seat with my arms folded across my chest and kick the back of Emmett's seat hard. "Jerk," I mutter.

Emmett laughs unrepentantly and I ignore them all as Bella finally joins us and we go home. I don't know why I reacted so furiously to Emmett's comment. It isn't as though he hasn't been teasing me my whole life! But I don't want the complications of a romance at school, and I definitely don't want my family watching avidly from the sidelines as I try and make friends.

Remember what you are! Emmett's comment, which he didn't mean as anything more than a joke, stings. What am I? I'm not the only half human-half vampire hybrid in the world, but with Nahuel and his sisters living down in the Amazon jungle I may as well be. Not vampire, not human, but caught somewhere in the middle and never quite belonging anywhere…I don't know what it means to be what I am! I stare out the window and bite my lip hard against the threatening tears.

When we reach home I am greatly cheered by the plate of cookies Esme offers me. Cookies and another half a gallon of milk do wonders for my state of mind, and as I eat my oatmeal raisin cookies and drink milk and talk about my first day I am even quite enthusiastic about school. For all it was difficult and confusing and not quite what I expected…I'm glad I went.

The others are all quite blasé about the new school. Bella tells Esme a few things about her day and then wanders off to the porch with a book, but she's the only one who even talks about it. Edward just shrugs and says that school is school, and then sits down at his piano with a pencil and his half completed music manuscript. Emmett and Rosalie merely wave as they hasten through the house on their way outside for some hunting.

When I finish my snack I head towards my room to take care of a little homework. No one else is doing homework and I realise with a stab of resentment that since they don't sleep they all have at least eight extra hours a day in which to do the things they have to do. It can't be helped though, and considering that my homework takes me only about twenty minutes I'm not really that upset about it.

I'm just about to turn my computer off and go and play the violin when I notice that among my lists of contacts, one of them is online for the first time in weeks. Not Jacob (JacobWilliamBlack has remained resolutely offline), but Seth Clearwater, a friend who used to be a member of his pack. I look at the name, my heart thudding. I know Seth. He used to hang around the house in Forks sometimes, and was about the only pack member who wasn't repulsed by very nature of vampirism, and didn't automatically view me as some kind of hellish demon-child. More important than any of that though, is that I know that Seth is still at the reservation. He'll know how Jacob is.

Lochnessmonstergirl: Seth? Are you there?

Wolfman92:. Ness? That really you?

Lochnessmonstergirl: Yes.

Wolfman92: Long time no chat! How you doing?

Lochnessmonstergirl: Okay. Started at a new school today. You?

Wolfman92: nothing much. Not the same since all the vamps left town.

Lochnessmonstergirl: lol

Wolfman92: you and the bloodsuckers planning on coming back ever?

Lochnessmonstergirl: don't think so

Lochnessmonstergirl: people might wonder why no one looks any older

Lochnessmonstergirl: you miss us?

Wolfman92: miss all the murders and battles and threats of death?

Wolfman92: of course!

Lochnessmonstergirl: lol

Lochnessmonstergirl: wanted to ask you how Jacob is.

Wolfman92: Ok.

Lochnessmonstergirl: okay- he's okay, or okay- I can ask you okay?

Wolfman92: J is ok

Lochnessmonstergirl: do you see him a lot?

Wolfman92: he's around

Lochnessmonstergirl: has he said anything about what happened?

Wolfman92: not much

Wolfman92: you hurt him bad Ness

Wolfman92: you still there?

Wolfman92: look, I'm sorry, but you asked

Lochnessmonstergirl: I didn't want to hurt him

Lochnessmonstergirl: I'm so sorry

Wolfman92: I'm not the one you need to tell

Lochnessmonstergirl: do you think it would make any difference?

Wolfman92: are you coming back for him?

Lochnessmonstergirl: I can't

Lochnessmonstergirl: it's too complicated to explain

Lochnessmonstergirl: but this is how it has to be

Wolfman92: then you should probably just leave him alone

Wolfman92: sorry

Lochnessmonstergirl: I'm sorry.

Lochnessmonstergirl: Iwouldn't have done this if I had another choice

Lochnessmonstergirl: take care of him for me, please

Wolfman92: will do

Wolfman92: he's my pack brother

Wolfman92: Jake'll be ok- he's a tough guy

Lochnessmonstergirl: thank you

Wolfman92: it's cool

Wolfman92 has signed out. Lochnessmostergirl has signed out.

Closing down the laptop I flop backwards on the bed, staring up at the ceiling with eyes that swim with tears. Oh my Jacob, I'm so sorry that I've made you unhappy. I'm so sorry that I hurt you! Once again I feel that fierce rush of rage at the unfairness of imprinting, at the power it has to hurt those involved. Sam and Leah and Emily, now Jacob and I...are there no end to the lives that are going to be damaged by this?

It worked out for Jared and Kim, and bizarrely Jacob's sister Rachel came around to the idea of Paul and he's like a different person now and the two of them are happy. The jury is still out on Quil and Claire, but I know from the little Jacob has said that it's not working out so well for them right now. Quil is a grown man and his life revolves around a ten year old. While technically she's older than I am, Claire is also a normal ten year old, who plays with Barbies and Littlest Pet Shop toys and is obsessed with Harry Potter and who is getting eliminated from American Idol, and is not the least bit interested in ancient Quileute legends.

Imprinting feels like some random deity is just playing games with all these lives, and everyone involved is held hostage to it. For those who imprint it seems that there is no escape from the ties, although I'm pushing that boundary with Jacob now. Even those who don't imprint can't get away from it, because after witnessing the Sam-Leah-Emily tragedy none of them want to open themselves up to relationships and risk that kind of pain. Seth has told me he will never date, because he won't do to another girl what was done to his sister. They're all caught up in limbo, those people who became the wolves and have effectively lost their free will and the potential of their lives in the process.

Really, it's no wonder they hate the vampires. It's an uncomfortable fact I can't get away from that if it weren't for my vampire family settling in Forks, none of the Quileutes would have ever phased…the wolf would have stayed in the realm of legend and no one would have been hurt. If it weren't for me being born and half the vampire population turning up intending to either kill me or protect me, the wolf pack would have had no reason to grow to the numbers it did, and there would not now be so many Quileutes whose lives are tied to the fate of the wolf.

Even now no one knows what the purpose of imprinting is, and why it happens for some and not others. There were theories about it being a way of strengthening or preserving the bloodlines but if that's the case why did Leah or Seth never imprint when they carry the wolf genes through three lines of descent? Why would Quil imprint on a child who is years away from being able to have a child of her own? And why on earth would Jacob imprint on me when I'm not even the same species?

I know there's been endless speculation within the family and even the wolf pack about my ability, or lack of, to reproduce. I hate the idea of them talking about me like that, and I have always refused to even let them broach the subject in my presence. The only time anyone has ever said anything to Jacob it was Emmett and his big mouth, and that ended up in Jacob phasing and the two of them brawling on the front lawn. But whatever people's theories and hypotheses are, no one knows for sure just what would happen if I ever took that intimate step with someone, whether they be human, vampire or shape shifter.

For what it's worth, I do have a menstrual cycle. Not the same as an ordinary human one, but there does seem to be a 'normal' for me, which Carlisle thinks is a good indication of at least potential fertility. In what still rates as one of the most embarrassing experience of my life I got my first period when I was playing video games with Emmett and Jasper one day. They realised what was going on before I did and Jasper just got up and left the room, leaving me to Emmett's tender mercies. Believe me, I could have lived forever without having Emmett inform me bluntly that he can tell I've just started my period and while he knows the biology of it as well as anyone, as a vampire and a man it wasn't really his area and wouldn't I rather go and talk to Rosalie? In all fairness to him he was as gentle and matter of fact about it as he could be, but it is still not an experience I would care to repeat.

Thank goodness for Rosalie. She and Alice were the only girls home and Alice turned out to be almost as freaked out by the whole idea as the boys, I guess because she had no human memories of such a thing happening to her. Rosalie did just what I needed her to though, helped me sort myself out and then gave me ice cream and a hug and promised me that, although everyone would always know when it was happening to me, no one would ever say anything to embarrass me.

I appreciated Rosalie even more later on, when I realised how difficult dealing with that moment must have been for her. After she'd talked to me and hugged me and warned Emmett he would lose a testicle if he ever said anything about it to upset me, I felt much better about the whole situation and went to practise my violin. Rosalie saw me right and then disappeared, alone, into the forest for several hours. She smashed a lot of things up that afternoon – trees and rocks, I saw the evidence later – but she never, ever let on to me how much that proof of my growth and development and potential fertility had hurt her as it reminded her once again of what she didn't have and never would.

With a sigh I sit up and reach for my violin. The music will make it better, it always does. But as I play, eyes closed and notes coming by instinct, there is a sobbing thread of sadness running through my melodies and it is as though I can hear, from a great distance, the howling of a wolf.

I'm sorry Jacob.