CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The house was silent when we returned and we crept to my room in the darkness and went straight to bed. I knew my parents would be awake until they heard me, even though they made the pretense of not waiting up. Neither Edward nor I spoke now, although my heart was pounding so loudly when I climbed into my bunk that I wondered if he would hear it. I kept replaying the kiss in my mind and despite fearing I wasn't ready for that, I knew I wanted to do it again. Eventually I slept, undisturbed by dreams, until my sisters knocking on the door woke us the next morning. I glanced at the clock and saw that it was eight-thirty - somehow Mom had managed to keep them quiet and let us sleep.

"Yeah, we're getting up!" I called out. "Is there any hot water?"

"Not much!" they shouted. "You might have to share!"

My face flamed and I rubbed my hands over my cheeks, not daring to look over the edge of the bunk at Edward.

"You go first if you want," I said.

Predictably I ended up with a cold shower, but I rushed through it and joined Edward in the kitchen for breakfast. I was filled with nervous excitement at the prospect of going to look for my birth mother and I struggled to eat as I listened to Edward describing the fireworks to Mom and my sisters. For once they weren't eager for our company and I discovered Mom had arranged for them to spend a good part of the day with one of the girls who came to their party, to give us some time to do what we wanted. The girl's father came to collect them half an hour later and suddenly the house was very quiet.

"What are you doing today?" Mom asked me.

"We're...um...we're going to La Push," I said.

"To look for Maria Black?"

"Uh..."

"It's ok, Jacob, I told you we're happy if you want to try to find her."

"Thanks, Mom," I said awkwardly. Even though she was ok with it, I still felt guilty in some way.

We set off in the truck just after ten and the closer we got to the other Reservation, the more nervous I felt. My mouth was dry and my stomach full of butterflies. Would I find her? If I did, would she even talk to me? Would she know anything about where I came from? I was glad to have Edward with me; at least I wasn't having to do this on my own.

Unsure where to start, I parked up outside a small convenience store, open New Year's Day the same way some of the stores in Neah Bay were. After a few minutes pretending to look at the stock while the young guy behind the counter served a customer, I asked if he knew of the Black family. If the store delivered newspapers, they probably knew everybody.

"You mean Jerry and Carmen Black?" the boy said at once and I nodded. At least it was a place to start.

"Could you tell me where they live?" I asked.

"Well, I don't know; who are you? You look local, but I don't recognise you."

"I live in Neah Bay," I told him. "I'm Quileute though, I left a long time ago. My name's Jacob Black."

"Oh, you're related then. Ok. They live on Cliff Street; it's the last branch off to the right from the main road there. The green house at the end."

I thanked him and we returned to the truck. I wiped my damp palms on my jeans before starting the engine again.

"Jerry and Carmen - I wonder if they're her parents?" I mused.

"Maybe. Or if not they might at least know where she is," Edward said.

I took a deep breath and steered the truck back onto the road, my heart hammering as we proceeded, looking for Cliff Street. In just a few more minutes we were outside the green house and I was tempted to turn around and go home without knocking on the door. I couldn't have explained why I was so worried about going to ask if they knew Maria - what was the worst that could happen? They would say no, or she would be there and not want to see me.

"You want me to come with you?" Edward asked, but I shook my head and he stayed in the truck as I walked up to the door.

I raised my hand to knock, but the door opened before I had the chance and I guessed the people had seen my truck and were curious. I looked back at the man in front of me - severely cropped black hair, greying at the temples, around the same height as me, but thin and gaunt.

"Yes?" he said suspiciously.

"Um...good morning, are you Jerry Black?" I asked.

"Who wants to know?"

"Jacob Black."

His eyes narrowed. "One of Josh's lot, are you?"

"Um...I don't know a Josh," I said. "I'm from Neah Bay, although I was born Quileute. I was looking for Maria Black."

Jerry's suspicious expression turned into a scowl. "What do you want with her?"

"You know her?"

"Uh huh."

"Well, I wondered if I might talk to her. I think...she might have been my mother. I was adopted as a baby."

Jerry's eyes flashed with something that looked like anger and to my surprise he turned away abruptly. "Carmen!" He walked away down the hall. "Some kid at the door, thinks he's Maria's." He muttered something else that I couldn't catch and disappeared into one of the rooms leading off the hallway. After a moment, a thin, worried looking woman came to speak to me.

"Maria's our daughter," she said.

"Oh! Well, can you tell me where she is?"

"I'm sorry, we don't know. We haven't seen her since she was little more than a child. What do you know about her?"

"I was told I'm her son. I was adopted; apparently she couldn't take care of me. I heard my father was her teacher, maybe?"

"She was on her own," Carmen said. "Jerry wouldn't have her in the house after the trouble she caused and she packed up and left."

"She was sixteen!" I gasped.

"We're very traditional."

"It's the Twenty-Second Century!"

"And this is none of your business. I suspected she was pregnant and I tried to find out where she went, but I wasn't able to. She came back months later, making out like nothing had happened although she admitted to me she'd had a baby and given it away. Jerry gave her another chance and she was here for about a year, but things were very strained. She took up with another man from out of state; Nevada I think; said she was going to marry him. He was a white man, Jerry wouldn't give him the time of day and Maria left with him. I had a letter to say she was alright, but since then, nothing."

"You don't even know where she is?"

"No. Now, I'm sorry I can't be any help, but I've told you all I know."

"But...what was the man's name?" I pressed.

"David something. It was a long time ago."

"Didn't you want to find her?"

She sighed heavily. "Please...just go. There's nothing else I can tell you."

"But you must be my grandmother," I went on. "I'm trying to find out where I came from."

"Then you'll have to look elsewhere." Her face stiffened now. "Mine and Jerry's parents are all gone now. I can't help you."

I clearly wasn't going to get any more out of her and I reluctantly returned to the truck. I was hugely disappointed by the anti-climax and despite having come face to face with my grandparents, they didn't want anything to do with me and hadn't cared enough to track down their own daughter after she left. Maria could be anywhere and I didn't have a hope in hell of finding her. I sighed heavily as I sat down behind the wheel and Edward scooted along the seat towards me, touching my arm.

"What happened?"

"Nothing." I recited what Carmen Black had told me. "It's a dead end. I'm never going to find her."

"Maybe there's someone else here who knows something," Edward said. "Friends perhaps? You want to find out about our previous life rather than the immediate ancestors, so who would know about things from ninety years ago? Tribal elders?"

"I suppose," I muttered despondently. Right now I couldn't imagine going and knocking on some other random stranger's door to be given more disappointing news and I started the truck. "I don't want to do this now. I know it seems stupid, since we're right here, but I just...I don't know, even doing this much was tough. I expected more; I know I shouldn't have."

"It's ok," Edward said. "It must be a bit of a shock after you were hoping to find your mother."

"It's not really that. I mean, I've only ever known my Mom and Dad and they're amazing. My main reason for finding her was for details on our pasts."

"We can come back another time to look for others who might help."

"I guess. Maybe I'll just drive around first, see if anything's familiar."

We did just that, but my memories didn't seem to be playing ball. I didn't recognise anything or have any visions, although I noticed Edward gradually growing tense as I drove about. He was chewing his lip, raking his fingers through his hair, fidgeting.

"What's wrong?"

"I don't know; nothing I can explain. I feel like I'm...trespassing or something. Stupid." He laughed awkwardly.

"Maybe not. We were supposed to be enemies; you may not have been welcome here," I mused. "This whole thing is just...everything raises more questions. I will come back and try to find out more; I know if we go back to school next week and I haven't at least made more effort, I'll be kicking myself until Spring Break."

I turned the truck back onto the main road and headed back the way we had come until we were leaving the Reservation behind. We had only gone a short distance before something made me pull over onto the shoulder and I parked up and cut the engine again. Nothing surrounded us except trees and a narrow dirt track leading away from the road, but there was something important here.

"What is it?" Edward asked.

"I don't know. Let's look around." We got out of the truck and I wandered up the track a short distance. A large clearing was up ahead with a single tree growing in the middle of it - an oak with its branches bare of leaves, but decorated with snow.

"This wasn't here before," I muttered. "This tree must have been planted after we...died." I touched the trunk and walked around to the other side of it and suddenly I was in my previous life again, in a house that I knew had belonged to Edward and me. We were in our bedroom at the top of the house, me in my wolf form and Edward wearing just pants, both of us tense, waiting for an attack that we knew was coming.

'I love you,' I thought, knowing he would hear it and hoping it wasn't going to be the last chance I had to tell him.

"I love you too."

The door fell inwards, torn from its hinges, landing flat on the floor and admitting a blur of bodies. I sprang without thought or planning - there was no time for either and no room to do anything other than fight and fight hard. My jaws clamped around a vampire's head, tearing it from its body and I jumped back before aiming at the next. This one was small but determined looking and it rushed at me, hands outstretched. I halted and slid backwards, my claws tearing up the carpet, propelled by what seemed to be some kind of force-field. The vampire didn't even touch me, but I was powerless to fight back. I snapped helplessly towards its hands, my ears vaguely registering the sound of snarling outside and a brief sense of relief washing over me. The pack were here. Maybe now we had a chance.

I lashed out with my claws, struggling to free myself from the vampire's power, my eyes swivelling around me to take in the rest of the room. Edward had killed two other vampires, their bodies lying in a heap at the side of the bed, but now three more were cornering him and as I watched, all of them moved as one. Two large powerful ones pinned him to the wall suddenly and although he managed to throw one off in a second, the other made a quick move with its hands and in an instant his arm was detached from his body. The limb landed in front of my paws.

'No! Edward! Fuck!' I screamed in my head.

The grinning vampire in front of me seemed momentarily distracted and I felt the force holding me weaken a little. I launched myself forwards and snapped my teeth together around the creature's throat, tearing out a chunk so that its head rolled back and its body crumpled to the ground. I sprang at the next attacker, desperate to get to Edward who, one-armed and yelling, was still held against the wall by the other vampire.

The vampire who I remembered had rescued us in Italy glided smoothly through the window and engaged the first guard he came to as I killed another. Then I turned towards Edward, my beautiful Imprint, just as the smaller vampire in front of him raised her hand, throwing a fireball from her fingertips. I was deafened then, by the snarling and screaming downstairs and by the screams of agony from Edward as he went up in flames.

"Jacob! Oh, God, what happened? Jacob!"

My eyes refocused on the snowy ground in front of me and I realised I was kneeling, my mouth open from screaming and a pain in my chest so intense I felt as if I could have been stabbed. I sucked my breath in hard and put my hands over my face, shuddering and crying. Edward was kneeling beside me, his arms holding me as I gasped and sobbed.

"C-can't you remember?" I choked.

"I remember we lived here. That's all."

"You died...they killed you...I saw it...fuck..."

"Sshh...it's ok...it's over...I'm here..." Edward was saying. "Come on, get up. Let's get back to the truck."

I stumbled to my feet on shaky legs and Edward held me up as we walked. In a few minutes I was sitting in the passenger side of the truck and Edward had started the engine, turning the heating up. I took a long shaky breath and dried my face.

"Fuck, that was...intense..."

"What happened?"

"I don't know what happened before...we were in the house, in our room, me as a wolf. It was like we knew there was an attack coming. I think they were something to do with the people who held us prisoner in Italy. A bunch of vampires. They attacked us and your...family...and my wolves fought them. Your family were different somehow; you weren't killers, Edward. I can't explain it, but somehow I just know that. I was fighting one of them and three others overpowered you...tore your arm off. Oh, God..." I screwed my face up in an effort to shut out the horrible image, followed by that of Edward burning and screaming, turning to dust in front of me.

"I can remember a little," he said. "I can remember fighting and then...nothing."

"You seem so calm." I realised he was still holding me, stroking his fingers through my hair and I grasped his hand and held onto it tightly.

"I can't remember the horror of it...I can only see how it was from the way you reacted. You were screaming..."

"I know."

"You just told me I wasn't a killer. I don't know how you know, but if that's true then it makes the one thing I really hated about this better. I know I died...we both did...but we already knew that."

"Yeah, I guess. Seeing it happen though, it was so real," I groaned. "Seeing you die...I felt like part of me was dying."

"Maybe that's why we're here again now," Edward murmured. "We already know you Imprinted on me and I died a violent death..."

"We were really young," I put in. "I was eighteen."

"So our time was cut short, but we had this really strong connection..."

"We're getting another bite at the cherry." I smiled slightly. "We have to find out properly. Right now I just want to go home, but we'll come back in a couple of days and ask around some more. I feel like we're really close to discovering who we were."

"Me too." Edward let go of me and edged away a few inches. "Do you want me to drive?"

"Yes, please." I sat back in the seat and watched as he shifted the truck into gear and steered us back onto the road. I hadn't even realised he could drive, but I shouldn't have been surprised. It was pretty unusual for anyone to reach eighteen without having learned.

"When's your birthday?" he asked as we left La Push.

"My birthday? The fourteenth, why? That's pretty random."

"I don't know, I thought you might want to think about something else; that's the first thing that came into my head because your Dad said you wouldn't get a birthday gift because of the truck."

I grinned. "When's yours?"

"June."

"Aww," I teased. "Still a baby."

"Maybe this time around. Something tells me I was over a hundred when we were together before."

"Jeez, so I was dating an old man?"

"Apparently so."

I looked at his profile, eyes fixed on the road ahead, the glasses he had pulled out of his pocket perched on his nose, the corner of his mouth drawn up into his crooked smile.

"I'm glad I found you," I heard myself say.

"You were meant to."

"I mean, without that."

"Me too." He glanced at me briefly. "What are you going to do about your friends?"

"What friends?"

"The guys we saw last night?"

"Oh...um...I guess I'll call them like I said and catch up. Maybe later. I'm sure they want to give me the third degree."

I smirked as I remembered the stunned look on the guys' faces after they saw me kiss Edward. I decided to get that out of the way as soon as we got home. I briefly told my parents what had happened in La Push and then Edward went into more detail while I called Steve from my room. Predictably he didn't waste any time in grilling me.

"Are you gay?"

"Um..."

"Or bi? I mean, you were kissing a guy."

"Well, I guess I must be then," I grinned, feeling strangely unfazed by the question.

"Is he staying at your place?"

"Yes."

"Do your parents know?"

"No, it's really early days," I said truthfully.

"Oh, ok. Well, me and John won't gossip. Actually, I wanted to talk to you about something."

"You mean that's all you're gonna say?"

"Jake, it's up to you who you're with, but I really don't want to dwell on the fact that you like dick," Steve blurted. My face heated up and I cleared my throat.

"So what did you want to talk about?"

"Suzannah."

"Ok..."

"I...um...I kind of felt bad about it because of you being with her so long and everything, but since you're...with a guy, I figured you didn't want her back. I mean..."

"Spit it out, Steve, are you saying you like her?" I interrupted.

"Yeah. We went on one date right before Christmas."

"Are you going to see her again?"

"Yes, I want to and she seems to want that too."

"Cool."

"You don't mind?"

"Why would I mind?" I said at once. "You're my friend, she's a nice girl, if you like each other, that's great."

"Awesome," Steve said with relief.

I chatted to him for a few more minutes and then went to rejoin Edward and my parents. He hadn't yet told them we planned to go back to La Push in a few days and ask around some more.

"There's bound to be someone there who knows something," I mused.

"You might try looking for the tribal elders," Dad suggested.

"Yeah, Edward said that too. We'll give it a try." Hopefully this time we might come back with some answers.