A/N: Okay, so I'm not the most reliable updater ever. Who cares, this is almost drawing to a close! As an apology, I have an extra-long chapter for ya. Enjoy, my peeps.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: The long-ago you and me Part II
Take all your so called problems
Better put them in quotations
-John Mayer- Say
"The hell?"
I felt eerily...normal. I mean, the internal pep talk, the whole steeling-my-nerves thing, mentally preparing to maul some vamps, and this is what I get? A chick in a pink sweater with mother effing pigtails?
A huge, idiotic grin overcame me as I turned to Dante, whose dark hair was falling haphazardly into his eyes. "Dude." I giggled. "You were nailed by a little girl in braids."
Edward's eyes widened in sudden comprehension. "Haley... you mentioned her. She's daring Seth."
My brow furrowed. "Though he doesn't-"
"LEAH DUCK!"
I automatically went down on my knees at Dante's yell, then straightened to see their looks of absolute confusion. I turned towards the Lindsay Lohan wannabe slowly.
Her eyes were flashing. Her palms were outstretched, in a sort of obey-me gesture I personally found very irritating. "Wow." I said, conversationally. "Look at that. Looks like they don't teach you how to handle freakish shape shifters in Voodoo 101."
"What are you?" She exclaimed prettily, the hard edge of her fear and hatred making her voice weird for her teenage frame.
I took a step forward casually, and she retreated. Her hands went across the counter, searching for something. "You know, that's a good question. The answer would probably provide quality material for a daytime sitcom." I contemplated this, then shrugged. I took another step. "But please, don't let me hog the limelight all to myself. That would be very impolite, and I'd like you to know that that's not how Clearwaters are raised. Not that it's likely I won't get rid of you before you get the urge to get to know us better."
Though my tone was completely civil, she was scrabbling violently for whatever it was she was looking for. Picturesque china, gnomes and fairies tumbled to the ground, making expensive-sounding explosions. She seemed bent upon costing the Cullens a fortune, not that I'm complaining.
She finally found whatever it was that she was looking for, and I had a brief glimpse at a glassy-eyed, enormous porcelain doll before she chucked it at me.
I ducked again, and it crashed a few feet behind me. Whatever else she was, lil' Hales never had mastered the technique of Throwing Heavy Objects With the Intention of Causing Damage.
When she saw that her lame attempt at fracturing my skull had failed, Haley gave this little shriek and began to run away.
"Oh, no you don't." I growled. I was getting tired of her almost-badass act. Either you were Cate Blanchett, or you weren't. You can't just go halfway. Which was why I grabbed her unceremoniously by a pigtail and yanked. Hard.
She changed her mind real quick about the escape plan. She gave a little whimper of pain and struggled. I yanked harder, and she got the point and went still.
"Now." I said, still perfectly calm. "First things first. Who the hell are you?" She yelped as I twisted her hair around my fist. I turned her to face me and raised my eyebrows. Her face was set.
I clicked my tongue, and began tugging her back outside, where my best friend and non-friend were still pinned, immobile, to the wall. "As much as I would enjoy Plan B, I have a way that won't get blood all over my clothes." I smiled sweetly at her, and called, "Edward?"
Her look of terror settled into one of sheer stubbornness. "Do what you can, leech." She spat in his direction.
I bit back a grin. "Tough talk, coming from Alice in Wonderland."
"She's a sorceress." Edward's voice broke in, full of concentration. "She's...she's here for revenge."
"Revenge for what?" Dante and I demanded at the same time.
Edward opened his eyes. Honey-colored seconds before, they were now pitch black. His entire face was paler than usual, drawn and weary. He seemed physically weaker. I looked at Haley in confusion.
She was smirking.
If I wasn't angry before, I was furious now. I shoved her towards the wall, allowing the sharpest edge of my anger to be taken out by the roughness of my actions. I noted with grim satisfaction that her silence was limited to coherent phrases. She was making little yelps all along the way.
The first time I rammed her head against the wall, I heard something break and blood poured profusely from her forehead.
"You know," I said, as she burst into tears, "I really advice you not to piss me off. You're just giving me an excuse to revert to Plan B and enjoy myself." I leaned in to whisper, "Got that?"
She made a noise I interpreted as anger, assent, pain, and plain, old-fashioned hatred.
"Leah."
I blinked and got dragged out of my Uma Thurman moment by Edward's urgent tone.
"Leah," he said, softly. His eyes were still dark, but clouded with confusion. "Don't hurt her."
I gnashed my teeth. "And why would you say that?"
"This is all because of you!" Haley shrieked, unexpectedly. "If you weren't such a bitch, maybe I could've let the leeches go!"
I rounded on her. "What?"
"Seth was in LOVE with me!" She continued. "He loved me, and he went and imprinted on someone else!"
I felt my grip omn her hair loosen. "He...what?"
She sobbed loudly, and I felt my heart sink.
"Seth imprinted?" I repeated, stupidly.
She struggled, and I instinctively gripped her tighter. "Yeah." She said, morosely. "At first, I though okay, you would never let him be with her."
I had a hollow, ringing noise in my ears, like the sound of my world collapsing. I knew where she was going with this.
"But then," she hissed venomously, "you went and effing gave him permission."
I felt the memories cascade on me like an avalanche, chilling and overwhelming. Seth not eating- Seth looking ill- Dante and I sitting next to him- me telling him I loved him no matter what.
"I wanted him to be happy." I realized, my voice full of wonder. "I don't care what he does. If it takes an imprint for him to be happy, then so be it."
I hate to admit this, but my eyes met Edward's, and for a second, he looked besotted. He quickly wiped the expression away, and almost squirmed. I smiled softly, then turned my attention back to Haley.
"'Sides," my voice returned to the mildly mocking tone, "I'd never let my baby brother shack up with a lunatic."
*(*)*(*)*(*)*(*)*(*)
Her story was something out of a Harry Potter novel, and my eyebrows were raised throughout. When we found out that though she could torture anyone -bar me- through her mind but not actually kill them, I banged her head against enough surfaces to make her release all the leeches, even though I paused when we came to Bella. Then it was a simple matter of yanking her pigtails until she was spilling her life story.
Turned out, sorcerers and werewolves had some sort of unholy allegiance that vowed allegiance till the end of time. It was all very sketchy, but the gist of it was that the sorcerers were bound by blood to avenge the werewolves by destroying all vampires. And thus Haley dropped into town.
"They sent a fourteen-year-old to take down a coven of ancient bloodsuckers?" Dante echoes, incredulously. Then he shot the others a charming smile. "No offense."
"None taken." Carlisle assured.
"I'm seven hundred years old, jackass." Haley announced, proudly.
"That explains the loafers." Rosalie muttered, and I smirked to myself. My thoughts exactly.
"So how was Leah immune?" Esme asked, cautiously, as if afraid I'd come over and yank her hair off by the roots as well.
Her question was a stumper.
"It could be the fact that the shape shifters used to think they were werewolves." Edward said, quietly. My eyes snapped to him, only to find his fixed on me intensely. "When I first found out about Jacob, he said he was a werewolf. There seems to be no way of distinguishing shifters and werewolves physically. In all probability, when the treaty of yours was signed, shifters were in the group of werewolves."
I blinked. Not because of what he said, but... well, since I saw him again, I felt this magnetic pull towards him. It was weird, in any scale. I never thought that being in love actually led to repercussions like this. But somehow, whenever I met his eyes, I could hear my heart pounding too-loudly in my ears. Pathetic, I know.
"Eddie, you're a genius!" Dante yelled in my ear, pulling me out of my haze. "That explains it!"
"I never suspected that." Haley admitted grudgingly.
There was a silence.
"Um." I said, hesitantly. "Does anyone know what to do with her? You see, I can't hang on her hair forever."
"Of course." Carlisle leaped to his feet. "Haley, lead us to whoever sent you. I'm sure we can agree that we pose no danger to them."
Haley shook her head vehemently, a movement I stilled before she could pull my arm out of its socket. "Nuh-uh. They're crazy. Tell you what." I all but saw the light bulb go on over her head. "I'll go and tell then the real situation. I'm sure they won't dare to come back when they know that a wolf pack's nearby." She sneered at me and I cheerfully twisted her hair.
"Are you certain that's within the pack's interests?" Carlisle asked courteously. It took me a while to realize that he was addressing me.
"Um. I guess." Anything to protect Jake's precious vampire spawn. "You'd better ask, though. Sam kicks tantrums about the weirdest stuff." I figured that this affected all the wolves, no matter our differences. It was a big decision. "Wait a sec, I'll call Jake."
I began fishing my phone out of my jeans pocket when three things hit me at once.
One was that I'd left my phone at Dante's place.
Two, that an extremely familiar voice went, "Leah? What're you doing here?"
Three, that in my preoccupation, my grip on Haley had loosened, and that her hand was wielding yet another of the heavy decorative hunks of porcelain in the house. She swung it towards me, and I went down.
*(*)*(*)*(*)*(*)*(*)
She looks at the sky as her legs power onward, onward as she all but hears her world crumbling around her. Images swim before her eyes; a dark-haired boy letting tears hang on his eyelashes, him biting his lip as her heart broke.
The miles are eaten up as she outruns the misery. But the visions are relentless. It's like taking one step forward, only to take two steps back. They haunt her even as her tears are left behind.
"Sam..." I thought I said. "Sam, it's okay, I
She wishes it was different. That she was born into a normal neighborhood, a good girl who fell in love with a bad boy. She wishes that she lived in someone else's story, so that her pain wouldn't be hers, nor the decisions, nor the memories.
"I forgive you, because I met this guy. I know you won't like him, Sam, but he's great, and I've fallen
The surroundings are unfamiliar. She pauses, as she sees the tree. Even now, she remembers the warning. She's such a good little girl, she would never forget the rules.
It's that thought that makes her snarl.
"for him, so don't you dare judge me because I think you owe me more than that. He's not perfect, but he'll
The night is silent. She looks up. The stars overwhelm her, and she inhales sharply. For a second, the world is still; evil is cleansed; she is happy.
Then the spell snaps, and her existence freefalls into itself.
"What're you doing here?" He asks sharply.
"he'll try, and that'll be more than you ever did. He makes me dream, Sam, of a place that's so perfect, where no one tries to force reality on us, where we can just be happy. There's no pain there, Sam. Can you
She bristles. "This is no man's land. I have a right to be here as much as you do, leech."
He raises his hand in a gesture of peace, and all she can read in his eyes is weariness. "Whatever. You just stay there, I'll stay here."
"I'll stay wherever I want!"
"believe me? I'm sorry I didn't let you go a lot sooner, but I still remember. You said that you'd never leave me, but you did, and that's hard to take. But I'm alright now. I let go of the dreams. I have new ones. Ones of a place like I said, where he isn't sad, where I don't have to keep fighting and fighting even when all I do is lose."
She closes her eyes. The images grow sharper, yet blur.
"I don't know who I am without you." She whispers into the night air.
Figures dancing in an empty street. The sharp scent of sandalwood, and Sam laughing and laughing.
I frowned. It was too confusing...
"Better to have loved and lost..." he is watching her intently. She hisses. "Whoever said that was a jackass."
Her eyebrows raise themselves. "I'm fine." She says, defiantly, but surprise makes her words quiet, hardly above a whisper.
"I didn't ask."
"Goodbye." I said.
I was shaken out of my daze as a voice growled, "you're not going anywhere."
Pain, blinding, engulfing pain. After the initial shock, it dissolves into a mindless chant that bounces around your head. Let me go, please, just let me go.
"Like hell I will." The same voice snarled and I realized that it's more of a choked sob than anything else.
More voices, all gruff and pitched intensely. I tried to fight the overwhelming sense of bliss, because that's what the voice wants me to do and I instinctively knew that I trusted this voice.
He's like an angel, she muses as she watches him out of the corner of her eye. The starlight has caught his unusual hair and set it alight, like a halo of pain.
"There are so many." She blurts, without thinking.
He opens his eyes. They are like molten honey, warm with undisguised despair. "Yeah." He says, cautiously. "You don't notice, when the moon's out."
She narrows her eyes, but it's half-hearted.
He bites his lower lip, a gesture that suddenly contrasts him to Sam.
She can feel her heart expanding, until her body seems filled with pain. She almost walks away, when he says, "Look."
She does. The starlight has drowned their town, and from here, you could see, the entire place.
It's so beautiful, it takes her breath away.
Light. So much light, it hurt my eyes. I blinked.
"She's awake!" A voice crowed. It's boyish and innocent, and I dug around my memory for the name that went with the voice. Seth.
A pair of honey-gold eyes came within my range of vision, and I blinked again. My gaze focused, and I smiled.
"Hey, Edward. What's-"
That's when he kissed me.
*(*)*(*)*(*)*(*)*(*)
"Edward, do you mind backing off from my sister so that I can ask her what the hell she's thinking?"
I smiled slightly against Edward's lips, and turned my head. He seemed undeterred, and kissed my cheekbone instead.
I saw Jake holding Haley at an awkward angle by the arm, looking flabbergasted. "Get her by the hair." I advised Jake, and Edward chuckled. "Much better grip."
"But-but-" he spluttered.
"How are you here?" I wondered whether that made sense. Probably not. It was hard to make sense when Edward's teeth were nipping at my skin gently. I felt a thrill go down my spine.
"Mum went crazy when you went AWOL." Seth said, matter-of-factly. He was taking the entire thing rather well, I thought. Considering that his murderous ex was a couple of feet away, not to mention the vampire making out with his sister. "And Dante's place was a mess, so Mum totally flipped and called Jake."
I turned to the almighty Alpha, who cringed. "And you dragged my brother to a deathtrap?" I inquired icily.
"He attached himself to me!" Jake protested, his eyes wide with panic. "He wouldn't stay, we tried to make him!"
They waited, obviously expecting my tirade. I smiled. "'S okay, guys. I know what you're like."
They blinked, and Edward laughed a full, deep-throated laugh I'd never heard before. It warmed my heart, as cheesy as that sounds.
"You turned Leah mellow." Jake accused him dazedly.
I raised my eyebrows. "Let's not inflate his ego more that it already is."
Seth snorted as mock hurt flooded Edward's eyes. "Before the two of you capsize in a wave of passion," he shivered delicately, "someone tell me what Dante has to do with any of this."
Dante, upon hearing this, raised his dark head and grinned sheepishly. "I'm a, uh, journalist." He blurted. "I had to do a report on this town, and on the way, I bumped into some old lore. Guess I won't be completing it after all."
"That's it?" Alice demanded. "all this while I thought you were a dragon undercover or something. Jeez."
I rolled my eyes. "Your family is weird." I told Edward.
"You're beautiful."
Which I thought was irrelevant, though I wasn't complaining. Especially when he kissed me again.
A gasp from the stairway confirmed that this time, Bella definitely saw the entire thing.
A/N: After that, if you don't review, expect me at your doorstep bearing a pickaxe. Kidding (sort of)