*Stephanie Meyer owns all.

Embers

La Push is one of the only truly beautiful, natural places in the world. There's a wonderful history about the place that seemed almost palpable as I stepped out of the crowded hover car. The Quileute tribe, a group of indigenous peoples, had once prospered on the west coast of the United States. Over time, they were confined to La Push reservation, courtesy of white men's politics. The ironic thing about the whole situation was that after the Gassings of World War III, a direct result of bad politicking, those on the reservation suffered minimal damage when compared to Washington D.C. which was virtually obliterated. Of course, residents of La Push were subject to radiation from the San Francisco Gassing and all of its side effects (cancer, birth defects, mental incapacitation etc.), but the Quileute people showed surprising resilience. Now, nearly a millennia after the Treaty of Urbino, the population had stabilized, and the reservation was cleaned up. And Forks had absolutely nothing on La Push.

La Push seemed to pulsate with life. Trees shot proudly up into the sky, so different from the trees in Forks that tilted over, boughs sweeping the ground. But the beach was La Push's greatest asset. A jagged cliff rose out of the grey, choppy water; a wooden jetty bobbed up and down with the waves; a beige blanket of sand covered the shoreline; but the water…the water was beautiful. White foamy caps topped the incoming waves as they glided languidly to the shore.

"Bella?" Angela disrupted my thoughts.

"Yeah?"

"A couple of us were going to head down to the bio-pools. Are you coming?"

I gave a quick nod and fell into step beside her.

Thwack! Oww.

"Holy Smokes!" I muttered holding my forehead in my hands. Eric had dropped his hold on the branch ahead of me and it had swung around and hit me square in the forehead. He didn't even break stride; he was too busy talking to Angela. That is definitely going to bruise, I thought as I carefully rubbed my forehead. Ow. And this was after already tripping twice on the hike back from the bio-pools.

The bio-pools were breathtaking. They were small inlets into the land positively teeming with aquatic life. The La Push bio-pools were extraordinary for their clear water—you could see all the way to the bottom!—a welcome change from most bio-pools that still maintained an opaque film that seemed to settle on the top of them because of pollution. And as far as I could see, all of the little fishes had two eyes, two fins and a tail, which was good because when Renee took me to see the Flagstaff bio-pools I could see things with four eyes, fins in all the wrong places and glowing skin. For all intents and purposes, the earth was still recovering from the Gassings.

I staggered out of the forest as the trail led me closer to a clearing where kids had begun to converge around a campfire. No more branches in the face for me, I thought happily as I made my way over to the kids from Forks High, who were talking animatedly with teens from the reservation. I took a seat next to Angela. She turned to face me.

"So, where have you been?"

"Walking back from the bio-pools," I said easily. "I'm not as fast as the rest of you natives, and I happen to be injury prone."

"Sorry, had I known I would have walked with you."

"Not a big deal," I shrugged. It wasn't really an issue.

"I didn't know Eric talked so much! I was trying to get out of the woods as fast as I could," Angela looked at me conspiratorially.

"Eric, talking too much? Never," I smiled. Eric was a known chatterbox.

Angela laughed, "Yes!"

"Did you know he let a branch swing back and hit me?"

Angela gasped, "No! Where did it hit you?"

"Right in the middle of my forehead!" Angela shook with laughter. "You don't see it?"

"See what?" She could hardly talk through her giggles. No doubt the thought of me getting a branch to the face was almost cartoonish in its hilarity.

"The bruise! Right here," I pointed to my forehead.

Angela gave it a quick look, "There's nothing there."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm positive."

"Because that branch nearly knocked me out."

She looked at me cautiously, like she wasn't sure if I was joking with her or not. Once I smiled it was all over. We both dissolved into peals of laughter that subsided only after sitting down to eat lunch.

By the time the food had disappeared, several of the teenagers had already headed out to check out the bio-pools. A few had even gone for a second round of diving. Angela had left with the first group, trailing Eric. I had to chuckle to myself, she could make jokes about him all she wanted but Angela definitely had a thing for him. One of the La Push kids came to sit next to me after Angela had vacated her seat.

"Hey Bella. I'm Billy's kid, remember?" He said by way of explanation.

"Right, I remember. Jacob right?"

"Just Jake. So, how's Forks treating ya?"

I sighed, "Apparently I'm in trouble." Jacob raised his eyebrow quizzically. "I keep getting punished by the weather."

He laughed easily, "Yeah, the weather sucks. How's the hover car by the way?"

"Awesome. No, really I like it. I'm already used to the um, engine, but I'm getting a heater installed next week—psyched about that."

"You mean the engine that sounds like someone's repeatedly stabbing a buffalo?"

I answered with a laugh, "Yeah, that one." Jacob sort of reminded me of Angela—you didn't have to work at keeping up a conversation, it just happened naturally. It was then that Lauren (an exceedingly annoying girl that sat at our lunch table in school) decided to shout across the campfire.

"Hey Bella, I thought you didn't know any of the rez kids." I resented her calling Jacob a rez kid, like he was any different from us. Jake, however, didn't seem like he noticed. He answered back with a relaxed laugh.

"We've known each other since I was in the cradle."

Lauren lifted her eyebrows, "Lovely. Bella, where's Edward? I figured since you guys seemed to be getting closer and all, you might have at least invited him."

Woah, aggressive much? Though I have to hand it to Lauren. With two sentences, she dismissed Jacob, added in the Edward bit for his benefit (not that anything was happening between us anyway), and shrewdly pointed out my floundering and unpredictable relationship with Edward. Bravo, Lauren. You have again managed to be a conniving little—

"Is this the Cullens?" An older La Push teenager demanded, interrupting my interior rant.

Lauren flicked her gaze toward the speaker, annoyed. "You know them?"

"The Cullens don't come here." * The authority in his voice shut down any further questions. Lauren turned back to Tyler with a nonchalant "Whatever".

"Who's that?" I asked Jacob quietly.

"Sam," he muttered back.

The Cullens don't come here. There was something off about that statement. I just couldn't quite put my finger on what it was exactly. There was too much finality for it to be as simple and straightforward as Sam had made it sound. No, there had to be something behind the obvious message. I snuck a glance at Jacob. He was staring into the flames of the campfire. The light played on his features nicely, highlighting his russet-toned skin, his high cheekbones. He must have seen me staring at him because he turned toward me and smiled. He had beautiful, dark eyes…

Egad! I wanted to cry out as the metaphorical light bulb lit up over my head. Sam wouldn't elaborate on the Cullens but I'm banking Jacob will if I prod him a little in the right direction. I returned his smile warmly and tried to make my voice seem velvety, mimicking Edward's speech.

"I still haven't gotten a chance to see the beach yet," I flicked my eyes towards the beach suggestively.

"I could take you down, if you want," Jacob flashed an unsteady smile my way. I simply nodded my head, then got up to follow him toward the shoreline.

"When's Billy coming down to Forks for the next game?"

Jacob shrugged, "Not sure. I know that there's some sort of championship game in three weeks though, so he'll definitely be knocking on your door then, if not before that."

"Maybe you should come up with him," I suggested in what I hoped to be an invitational way.

Jacob grinned, "Sure, it'd be fun to hang out. Catch up on the lost years."

I laughed, noticing how easy it was just to be with him. It was at that moment that I lost my footing. I braced myself for the inevitable fall but it never came. Jacob caught me firmly, steadying me.

My cheeks flushed, "Sorry, I'm just really clumsy. This happens all the time."

"Don't worry about it. It's not often I can rescue a damsel in distress."

I smiled wanly, aware that he still had his hands resting lightly on my arms. Well, if this was ever the time to press the advantage…

"Hey Jake, what was Sam saying about the Cullens?"

I felt his arms drop to his sides, "They're not allowed to come on the reservation." Then he smiled sheepishly, "I'm pretty sure I just broke tribal law with that slip."

"My lips are sealed," I promised him with a smile.

"Wanna hear a scary story?" his voice lowering to heighten the effect.

"Only if it's coming from you," I internally cringed at my attempt at flirting. Did I really just say that? Jacob led me to a rocky outcrop, oblivious to my internal reprimands. He waited a few moments for me to get situated before he began.

"Ever heard the Quileute legends before?" He asked, his voice getting huskier.

"Never," I said back trying my best to make the word as seductive as possible.

"There are a few really good ones but the scariest is of the Sun Children."

I could feel myself being pulled into his voice. Jacob was a good storyteller. "The Sun Children?"

He nodded slowly, "The Sun Children are ancient, but if the legends hold true, there have been far more recent interactions between the Sun Children and the Sons of the Moon—that's the Quileute's by the way. It's one of the reasons our tribe associates itself with wolves, they are the original moon worshippers according to legend. The Gassings started over two millennia ago, and lasted for just under a thousand years, right?"

"Yes," I said, trying to disguise my impatience.

"Well, the radiation did more than kill people. The story goes that there were those who survived the Gassings; those who were directly exposed to the radiation; those who should have died but somehow didn't. Something happened to their DNA, a mutation that allowed them to absorb the radiation into their bodies, into each of their cells. The radiation gave them the ability to manipulate time, to have unnaturally long lives. Not immortality per se, but radiation itself has a long life—over a million years. But it did terrible things to their bodies. The human body is not designed to hold that much radiation; it can't sustain itself. Their humanity began to wear away, consumed by the radiation. The Sun Children desperately searched for a solution, and one day they found it. They needed more human DNA to replace what the radiation had warped and the easiest way to get it was through blood. And so they became blood-suckers, feeding off of the blood of innocents, to maintain whatever shreds of their humanity they had left. Our tribe calls them Embers because you can always tell them apart from humans by the way they faintly glow—they retain some of the Sun's rays, only its muted—like embers are evidence a fire existed long after the flames have gone out."

"How do the Quileute's fit into all of this?" I asked in a whisper.

"We are called the People of the Moon because we stood in direct opposition to these monsters. My ancestor created a vaccine of sorts, to give to the Quileute people. It gave us immunity to the radiation. More importantly, it allowed us to transform into an avenger."

"Who do you avenge?" I murmured quietly, afraid of the answer as much as I was afraid of the dark look that came over Jacob's face when he answered me.

"We avenge the innocent. We avenge the deaths of those who died at the hands of those abominations. You must remember that the Quileutes have always cherished our connection to the Earth. The Embers signify everything that is unnatural. The Earth nourishes itself with the waters of rain, but the Embers nourish themselves on blood, and in so doing they must take another's life. That is not supposed to be the way of life, and the Quileutes have taken it upon themselves to restore what has been before the existence of the Embers."

"But what do the Cullens have to do with any of this? Are they Embers?" I felt a tingling sensation in the pit of my stomach, even as I realized the truth of it. Jacob raised one eyebrow as a smile tugged on his lips.

"According to legend the Cullens lived in Forks before; three, four generations ago. My great-grandfather signed a treaty with them because he saw they were different. They are forbidden to enter our land, and we are forbidden to hunt them down. Now the Cullens are back…and they haven't aged a day."

"How are they different?" I prodded Jacob.

"Apparently they do not hunt humans. Animals usually do the trick." Jacob's hint of a smile turned into an all out grin that lit up his entire face, "C'mon Bella, it's just an old story. Most of us don't believe any of it."

I smiled unsteadily. Just a story? "You're just a really good storyteller, that's all. See, I'm getting shivers."

Both of us looked up at the same time when we heard the sound of someone giggling. Jessica and Mike were headed towards us. Jacob turned to me almost apologetically.

"I guess this is goodbye until the next big Swamp Ball match on Charlie's big screen then."

I laughed easily, "Yeah. Listen, when you're up in Forks give me a call, we can hang out."

"Cool."

"Hey Bella," Mike called out. "We're headed back, there's a storm coming."

I glanced upward. Sure enough, dark clouds were gathering and the wind was picking up too. I said a quick goodbye to Jacob then headed back toward the hover cars with Mike and Jessica. I had an unsettling feeling in the pit of my stomach from Jacob's story. I wanted desperately to believe him when he declared it bogus, but something nagging at the corner of my brain was stopping me from casting it aside as just another scary story. In the end, I decided to put thinking about it on hold. I feigned sleep on the way home so no one would try talking to me. I paid very close attention to my breathing. In, out, in, out. Not once did I let thoughts of Edward settle in my mind.

Ta-Da! I know that this chapter stuck closer to Stephanie Meyer's book than I have in a little while, but even I have to admit that she had a great set up for this to take place. This marks a great milestone for me because I have now covered 130 pages of SM Twilight! As always please review. Tell me what you think!