Guest: Thanks. I think that Paul gets a bad rap sometimes. I see him as being pretty impulsive and a doer rather than a thinker.
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Narrator POV
Damn, she's fast, part of Jared's mind thought, even as he pounded through the forest.
Focus, Sam ordered, though Jared had already done just that.
How'd she do that?
The handful of wandering vampires this small La Push wolfpack had dealt with in the last two years had in no way prepared them for dealing with this vampire. Every move they made, she seemed to anticipate and instantly counter. Sam got the closest to her when he closed in from the side and got his jaws around a section of the long red curls. But her twisting move in the other direction resulted in her catapulting into the trees while he was stuck on the ground with a mouthful of leech-hair.
Damn it, he swore, dropping the hair onto the forest floor and gagging.
Gross, Paul observed, all the while being grateful it wasn't him. He was spared his Alpha's justifiable annoyance when Jared joined them to report,
She's gone. Skipped along the treetops like they were monkey bars on the playground.
And you'd know all about that, wouldn't you? Paul's jibe was automatic as much as it was a means of diluting the tension.
Shut up! His friends thundered, and with both Alpha and Beta in agreement, Paul did just that.
What's the play, Sam? Jared asked.
Full patrol schedule is back in effect as of now.
Man! Neither of the others was thrilled by that.
I don't want to hear it. Think how close she got to the rez! I know this isn't easy on any of us, trust me. But until or unless someone else phases to join us, we're just going to have to suck it up.
Think she got close enough to trigger it?
Sam sighed. I don't know, Jared. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
Yeah. Wonder why she came.
How the hell should I know? But if you're the one to catch up to her, you can ask her before we have the bonfire.
Far in the distance, the distinctive rumble of a heavy engine drifted through the muggy air.
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Sam POV
The frustration of a failed hunt had all of us on edge. We weren't accustomed to losing our quarry, and it left a bitter taste in our mouths. I wasn't about to let either myself or Jared go near our imprints right now, so burning off some steam was a necessity. We headed to Paul's house for a few rounds of boxing. Wearing the gear was annoying, but the last thing I needed right now was for someone to see us going at each other in a bare-knuckle brawl and call the cops to accuse me of running an illegal fight club.
As we walked down the street past the house that Old Quil shared with his daughter-in-law and his grandson, the younger Quil came outside and watched us go by. It was hard not to notice the suspicion on his face or the way that his nostrils flared as the wind blew toward him, carrying traces of the vampire we'd pursued today.
And here we go, I thought. Some intuition or Alpha-instinct somehow knew that he was now on his way to joining us.
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Bella POV
For the first time since I'd started spending days with Leah, I was awake, up, showered, and dressed by the time she arrived. I was a little surprised that Charlie hadn't left for work by now, but all he said was that he'd be going in late since he'd have to stay late. It didn't take long after Leah got there before I decided there was a bit more to it than that.
"Hi, Charlie," Leah breezed right in.
"Leah. How are things going?"
"Fine. Just fine. Hey, I'm wondering if I can borrow Bella for a day of shopping in Port Angeles."
"Fine by me," my dad replied. To which he got a traitor look from me. "That okay with you, Bells?"
"Shopping for what?" I hedged.
"Stuff for my college dorm room. They sent a whole list of approved and forbidden items. I can tell you now that my room isn't going to be furnished by the local Thriftway, or the Outfitters store, either. I need bedding and stuff like that." Leah paused for a minute, and then appeared to get a brain flash. "You know, Bella. We could use your room as a trial run. New bedding and curtains, picture frames. Maybe even a new paint color on the walls. That okay with you, Charlie?"
"Wha—" I didn't even get the whole word out.
If you want to do stuff with your room, that's fine with me. I guess I didn't do that like I should have before you got here," Charlie said. He disappeared upstairs briefly. When he came back, he had an envelope in his hand. "Here, you go, Bells. Hope that'll be enough."
I opened the envelope to see some cash. "I'm sure it'll be fine, Dad. I've got my bank card if I need it."
"Now, if you have to use that, then you tell me how much it was and I'll cover it for you," he insisted.
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On our way into Port Angeles, I turned in the seat to face Leah. "Why am I getting shanghaied into a room makeover?"
"Retail therapy solves a lot of problems," Leah informed me. "And you really need this intervention. That room…I'd almost swear it's toxic. You can do so well during the day, but by the next morning, you've taken a big leap or two backward. Relocating isn't really an option for you right now, I'd guess, so this is the next best thing. Give that room a new look, and it's like turning over a new leaf or a fresh page or something like that."
I hadn't really thought of it that way, but Leah might just have a point with this. Whether I meant to or not, or whether Edward had thought of it or not, my bedroom was filled with memories. The comforter, the curtains, the walls, the rocking chair…so much of it reminded me. And you didn't think to take all that along with the presents? I thought, acidly. But, could redoing my room really make a difference in my mental state? Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
"Sounds like fun," I told my friend. The trip might not have been my idea, but I was going to take it and run with it. With that determination, it really wasn't a surprise that Leah and I had a good time in Port Angeles. She found a dorm bedding set in a vivid combination of reds, oranges, and yellows. My pick was a brown, cream and blue bedding set with hints of tribal designs or echoes of the Southwest were I'd once lived.
"Not a girly girl, are you?" Leah queried.
"Nope. Much to my mom's despair, I'm sure."
"You're not planning to go this dark with the paint, right?"
"I'm thinking maybe cream, to match with the cream in the comforter. Bright, but warm, too."
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Back in Forks, we stopped at the hardware store to look over the paint options. I was drawn to a warm creamy color that, given my culinary aptitude, was appropriately named "Lemon Meringue".
"Painting party tomorrow," Leah announced.
And there was. Everyone seemed to come over the next day for my bedroom makeover. The girls got there before the guys did, so we got to work packing up my stuff so that we could clear things out as much as possible.
"So what's the plan, Bells?" Jake asked, sweeping me into a hug.
"Paint my room," I replied, thinking it would be obvious.
"Where's the primer?" Quil wanted to know.
"What?"
"Bella, Bella," he shook his head. "You can't put this light color over that green you've got without priming first."
"One step ahead of you, genius," Leah snorted. "The paint has a primer already mixed in. We're good to go."
"Well, almost," I added. "We've got to move some stuff around first."
"We'll move it, you'll just watch," Jake corrected. "Lead the way."
When we got upstairs, Jess and Angela looked up from the boxes they were filling.
"Excellent, Bella. Manual labor," Jessica laughed.
"Better yet," Angela cut in, "now I'm not the only tall one here."
"Jake, Embry, Quil, this is Jessica and Angela. They're friends of mine from school. Ange, Jess, these are my friends from La Push."
"You girls came down to the beach early this year, right? You look familiar," Jake said to Angela.
"Yeah, we did. You were there, too?"
He nodded. "My friend, Bells, was coming down to see me. 'Course I had to be there."
"And we all had a great time," I agreed. "Now, paintbrush, anyone?"
We ended up with a nice division of labor: the guys did the tall stuff, us girls did the lower bits. Lunch got eaten while the first coat of paint dried, and snacks after the second coat. Maybe I was just dreaming things, but the guys—Jake and Quil at least—really seemed to have bottomless pits for stomachs today.
"And we now have one repainted bedroom," Embry announced as he pulled the last strip of tape off of the window frame.
"You like it, Bells?" Jake wanted to know.
"I do. It looks good. Thanks, everyone."
"No problem," Embry replied. "Do we have all the brushes?"
I looked around and couldn't see any besides the ones piled into the paint tray he'd just picked up. "No, I think that's all of them."
Outside, he started rinsing off the brushes with the garden hose. Jake and Quil started tussling over the best spot on the porch steps.
"You shouldn't have to do all the work cleaning up," I told him, having moved out of the Jake-Quil danger zone. "After all the work you did painting…"
"You're making it out to be a bigger deal than it is," he said. "Not like I was the only one painting. But…" Embry looked down at me with a sly gleam in his eyes. "Count to three silently and then jump out of the way."
I looked at him in confusion and he jiggled the hose. Then I realized I was standing between him and the other guys. I mouthed, "One, two, three," and quickly stepped to the side. Embry whipped the hose up and blasted Jake and Quil with the spray. They both yelled at the shock of the cold water and jumped up from the porch, starting to come after Embry. For just a second, the look in Jake's eyes was…strange. Then it was gone, like I'd only imagined it.
"This means war, Call," he shouted, barreling into his friend before Embry could blast him again. Quil joined the pile and the three of them rolled around in the now water-logged yard. Leah, Jessica, Angela, and I just watched and laughed.
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Jake POV
The last thing before we left—and once we'd all dried off enough—was to put the stuff back into Bella's room. I'd've thought she'd want to put everything back right where it had been, but she moved almost all of it around. And then, she told me to take her old rocking chair.
"Use it for fuel at the next tribal bonfire or something, whatever you want. I just don't want it anymore. Same thing with the bedding. I don't want any of it."
"Okay, Bells. If that's what you want. I'll take those things for you."
Quil helped me manhandle the rocking chair downstairs and out into the bed of my dad's truck. The bed stuff we tossed into trashbags. I thought about seeing if a family on the rez could use it, but when I gave it a good sniff, I grimaced in disgust. Bella's strawberry scent was strongest, but there was something else there that not even the laundry soap and all could cover up. I didn't know what it was, but I didn't like it. So all of it would end up feeding the flames.
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"You didn't used to hit that hard," Embry complained, crashing on my garage couch with a can of my Coke.
"I didn't!"
Embry snorted and lifted his shirt. Sure enough, there was a barely-visible bruise on his side.
"Man, I—I guess that blast of cold water got my blood pumping. Sorry."
"It's okay. Worth it to see her laughing like that, right?"
"Yeah, guess it was."
Jake—"
"Yeah?"
"Don't do it again, though, alright?"
"As long as you don't blast me with a hose like that," and we shook on it, a deal between friends.