Renesmee
That day passed faster than I could ever have dreamed. It felt that as soon as it started, it ended. Oh, the almost-joy of being almost-free, I thought as I put on my light boots, so I could run easier. I jumped into the new snow, feeling it melt under me. It melted through the bottom of my jeans, but it didn't weigh me down.
One foot of snow made so much difference when running. I kicked up puffs as I sprinted to the river where the rest of my family was waiting.
"That took long," Alice said. Jacob – as a wolf – sat down beside me, and I pet the top of his head.
"I had to pee," I told her fearlessly. "You should've seen that coming."
She grinned and shrugged, taking two steps and jumping over the river.
"Can we split up?" I asked.
"Why?" Dad, Alice, and Mom asked. Jacob looked at me like he was asking too.
I shrugged. "I want to? I don't know, just this gut feeling that it will be better."
Jasper laughed and followed Alice across. "It's a hunt," he called, "why should it matter?"
"I don't know," I repeated, following Mom and Dad across. I barely realized that the last four were already gone. Jacob tensed and jumped across, and stood beside me, waiting.
I looked around, finding the path less traveled. "That way." I pointed to my left, and Jacob trotted in front of me impatiently. I rolled my eyes and ran past him. We outran each other for a while before we decided we should just go.
The moon was full, and the scene mirrored another hunt I had put on paper in September – except with snow.
We stopped in a small clearing pretty far into the forest, and I scanned my surroundings. I spotted a smallish mountain lion, slinking around in a tree on the other side of the meadow.
"What are you doing here?" I mumbled, nodding towards it. Jacob nodded and started forward quickly. "Mine," I said.
The wolf nodded again, and I passed him, moving in silently. I jumped into a nearby tree and tensed to spring as the lion sprawled lazily on its branch.
Jacob stood under the lion's tree and watched as I hopped onto the next branch.
Stalking gets boring after a while, I thought, jumping on the cat.
__________
"Good hunt?" was the first thing I heard when I got to school the next morning.
I kept walking, my boots scrunching on the ground as I made my way to the benches. "It was very fine, Galen, thank you for asking."
"So it went well," he said, sitting down across from me. His light brown hair was a little wet, and I guessed someone had thrown a snowball at him earlier. His dark eyes were bright, and I smiled at his apparent happiness.
The first bell rang, and I wondered where everybody was. I was really confused when I saw people leaving.
"It's flu week," Galen pointed out. "Half the school is out hacking their guts out – including teachers." He smirked.
I looked at him suspiciously, but playfully. "What does that mean?"
He laughed and said, "We have the day off. You didn't need to come."
"You were serious about half the school being out? We can leave? And, how did you find out anyway?"
He nodded and stood up, walking around the table and pulling me out of my seat. "Facebook. Where do you want to go today? Unless you want to go home, but where's the fun in that?"
I shrugged, and walked beside him to the nearly empty parking lot. "We have a wide collection of musical instruments, albums, books, video game systems, and a fifty-inch television. Other than that, nothing. Is there nobody we can visit?"
He shook his head and stopped in front of my Beetle. "Nobody cool. You're gonna have to drive, 'cause there's no way I'm walking home."
I looked down, and realized the snow was deeper than it was last night. "This is the first time I've seen this much snow," I said, taking a step back and gathering some up in my hands.
"Same here," Galen said, turning around just in time to get a snowball in the face.
I laughed and ran away as he threw one at me. I hid on the on the other side of my car, sticking my tongue out when he looked through the windows.
"That's cheating," he said, throwing one over the car that missed me by a mile.
"Screw you," I laughed, beating him with my own pile of snowballs.
He ducked on the other side, and I dropped to my stomach to see under the car. There was nothing there, except footprints spreading to both sides.
I stood up and gasped when it hit me right in the back of the neck. "That's – cold. Really, really cold," I whispered, shaking snow out of my hair as Galen moved to stand in front of me.
"It's snow. It's going to be cold." He rolled his eyes and leaned against the Beetle, waiting.
"It's colder on me," I told him, rolling my own eyes. "I'm really warm, remember?"
Galen nodded and pulled my hands away from my hair, placing them at my sides. I just stood there, expecting something other than what was coming.
"I declare a snow war," he said.
My head tilted to the side and my mouth popped open with an expression of, Huh? "What's that about?" I asked, more than a little confused.
"Snow war," he repeated, flipping open his cell phone and logging onto that stupid website called Facebook. He looked up from the page and said, "It's like a snowball fight, except with teams."
I let out an exasperated sigh. "Well, I assumed that. I just – never mind."
He shrugged. "Okay." He typed something into a little rectangle and turned the phone towards me so I could read it.
"'Galen Westlake and Renesmee Cullen declare a snow war at FHS.' Who said I had anything to do with it?"
"Me," he said, entering the status.
__________
I gawked at the flood of cars into the parking lot. Ten minutes hadn't passed, and there were already twenty people there, helping build up a long wall that separated the small field into two equal parts.
"You have got to be kidding me," I muttered as Miss McCartney and Miss McCartney pulled into the lot in a blue Sebring. They got out and walked together, looking comfortable and prepared for a "snow war" with students.
"No joke," Galen said matter-of-factly, tallying three new people. "They're regulars."
"Regulars?" He just nodded. I waited for an answer, but I knew I wasn't getting one. "Well, okay. So, how many do we have?" I looked over his shoulder and counted the ticks on his clipboard, looking around to confirm the number. "Fifty-seven? Wow."
He shrugged and started numbering people off into two teams, putting best friends and siblings against each other. Miss McCartney glared at Miss McCartney from across the field, and they both burst into laughter.
"The rules remain the same," Galen called. "No friendly fire, no stealing from the other team. The first Doctor for each team is the leader, and the job can be passed on. The team that surrenders loses." That seemed to be the queue to start, because everybody charged forward at the same time.