I am such a glutton for punishment, but I felt kinda bad that so many of you thought the chapter was anti-climatic and unappealing that I wrote another for you all. Thank you so much for your suggestions! You all had very good ones, and I plan on using them sometime in this story. Credit to those who helped.

-Kiddo

I felt Sam's eyes combing me over from head to toe. He was so much more intimidating than Emily when he wanted to be. It must have been the fact that he looked so similar to Quil.

"So, thanks for the ride." I hopped out of his car with fake cheerfulness, reaching for my bag in the backseat.

"Claire."

I cringed and turned around, my heart rate skyrocketing in the process. After Quil's little escapade I was actually beginning to look forward to Seattle with Dee and her boyfriend. Slightly.

"Is something wrong?" I furrowed my eyebrow and hauled my bag onto my shoulder.

"I just don't want you to be mad at Quil right now. He's having a hard time with this. You can understand that, can't you? And if you must know, I have no desire to see Quil's sexual thoughts about you. At least give me a few more years to work up to that, alright?"

"Oh," The turn of events surprised me and without any warning I began to feel guilty again.

"I talked to your aunt. Don't jump the poor boy, alright? Just promise me you'll try to make it easier on him."

"Easier on him…?" I raised my eyebrows slightly. What the hell did he think that this situation was doing to me?

"I knew you'd understand." He gave me a smile before driving away and leaving me with an entirely new vengeance to get out of Forks for the weekend.

"You're ready to go?" Delia asked when she opened the door.

"Are we going stripping?" I asked, trying to keep my jaw from dropping. My best friend looked like a hooker.

"Of course not, you little moron. I'm dressed appropriately. It's you that needs to change." She ushered me in the door, closing it quickly behind me.

"The only thing you're dressed appropriately for is the playboy mansion." I trailed behind her, thinking of useless arguments.

"Tonight, for once in your life, you are going to have real fun." She squealed excitedly and began rummaging through her drawers.

"I have fun all the time." I scolded, trying not to look at her from this angle. If she bent over any further the world would surely be able to tell what kind of underwear she was wearing.

"Not just fun, Claire. Real fun. You know what that is, don't you?" When I didn't answer she went on, "It's like the kind of fun you have when- There you are!" She held something up in her fist like a boxer would after winning a match.

"I will not be wearing your underwear." I felt horrified by even the thought of it.

"Like I care, you know? Go without." She aimed and shot the piece of elastic at me.

"What's up with you, Dee? First I don't see you for weeks, then you suddenly turn back up in my like wearing what looks to me like Pamela Anderson's wardrobe. Not to mention you want to go to the city for a party that's being hosted by people who you don't even know."

"Christ, Claire. Just chill out and put these on. I had to find some new friends while you were holed up in Cucamonga cabin with your boyfriends. I got lonely, you know?" The doorbell rang and she flashed me a grin, all traces of sadness gone. "That's Mode. Hurry up and get dressed so we can get a move on."

I stared down at the fabric in my lap. I wasn't ready to call them clothes just yet. They looked more like strategically cut handkerchiefs.

"There's no way." I told my lap in defiance, but Delia's words made me feel like a brick had been dropped into my stomach.

I had been a terrible friend lately. She was just trying to be closer to me.

I sighed in defeat and stripped the tee-shirt I was wearing off and replaced it with the shirt Dee had chosen, followed by the skirt that looked like it was made to fit a toddler. I walked to the front of her full length mirror and ran my hands down the silky shirt, willing it to stay in place.

"Are you done yet?" Delia practically threw her door open before stopping and scrutinizing me carefully. "You do look amazing, you know that?" She came behind my and tied the shirt in place. "Take off your bra, though, you moron. It's a halter top."

"You can't be serious." I looked at her in the mirror, feeling my level of comfort fall faster than ever.

"I have never been more serious in my life." She giggled and spun me around when I had complied. "See? Sexy."

"Fifteen." I reminded her diligently.

"Suit yourself."

"Hello Claire." I heard Mode's scratchy voice before I saw him. He was smirking. "My, don't we look nice tonight?"

"Go to hell." I told him, grabbing my hoodie off the bed and zipping it up before heading towards the car. A quick prayer was in order to add to the hope that no one would see me.

Another prayer was in order the second after Mode started the car and stalled it out twice before actually moving forward.

"We are all going to die." I told the ceiling in the backseat.

"Seattle here we come!" Delia hollered out the window as we passed Forks boundaries.

Maybe death wasn't the worst option right now.

"Can you believe how amazing this is?" Delia asked me, her voice slurring over the too-loud music.

"Oh, I can't believe it." I told my friend with raised eyebrows. Her top- even shorter and more reviling than mine- had ridden up past her navel and all but fallen off her shoulders.

"This is great." She swayed towards me, her eyes bulging at the word great.

I didn't want to admit to it, but my so-called best friend had become a drunken tool in my absence. And no matter how many times I tried to tell myself it wasn't, in my mind it always ended up my fault. If I had only been there to talk her out of so many things…

"Claire?" A voice I recognized caught my attention and I strained to find the source. "Claire! It is you! Wow, I didn't expect to see you here. Especially not so…naked?"

"Jackson." I raised my eyebrows in shock. "We're in Seattle."

"I know, right?" He bobbed his head next to me, a bottle of beer in one hand. "What are you doing here? I didn't have you pegged for the party type." He smiled.

"I'm not. I'm just here in moral support of a friend." I twisted around, looking for Dee. "A friend who has seemingly vanished out of thin air."

"That can happen." He nodded seriously at me and I felt like giggling. It was so hard to hate him when he was being nice.

"Listen Jackson, as much as I'd like to-"

"Wait," He cut me off mid-sentence, his eyes dancing. "I'm sorry about what I did. Honestly, I didn't mean to offend you in any way."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I simmered, feeling like he was testing the waters before he jumped.

"Absolutely nothing." He flashed an overly-white grin at me and looped an arm through mine. "Let's get you something to drink."

"I don't drink." I slammed on the brakes immediately, tugging at my arm.

"Don't fret, little Claire. I wasn't going to spike your coke." He gave a sharp tug on my arm and I was walking beside him again.

"This is just coke?" I sloshed the dark liquid around in my glass, looking suspicious.

"I swear on my mother's grave to you. You taste it and tell me if it seems funny." He smiled when I couldn't find anything wrong with it.

"I'm kina paranoid." I took another sip.

"So I've noticed. Is there any particular reason for that?"

"I've always been jumpy, I suppose." I finished off the coke and scoured the counter behind us for another can. "There's none left." I complained, feeling childish as soon as I said it.

"Here." He handed me what looked like to be a bottle of clear root beer. "You'll like it." He assured me upon seeing my expression.

"You never did tell my why you're here." I twisted off the bottle cap and without thinking, took a gulp of whatever happened to be inside. To my intense surprise I did like it.

"I'm here because I was bored."

"That is the lamest excuse I've heard all night. It's even worse than my own." I felt strangely more carefree.

"What's yours?" He leaned in closer, his eyes no longer glued to my face, but other, more interesting parts of my body.

"Oh, it's a good one." I leaned back against the counter, tapping my fingernails on the bottle. "I felt guilty, so I came to try to make up for being such a shitty friend."

"Alright, you win." He drew in towards me further, his face suddenly more intent. "How about we get out of here?"

I shook my head violently, trying to clear it. "To where?"

"I know who owns this place and there are some rooms up…" He trailed off and threw himself away from me. "Hold this." He muttered, shoving his beer into my hands and making a beeline in the opposite direction.

"What is wrong with that boy?" I asked the bottles in my hand. I sloshed Jackson's leftover beer around in its bottle, weighing the consequence. "Who's going to know?" I giggled and raised it to my lips, preparing to take a sip when two giant figures caught my eye. Far, far too big to be teenage boys, let alone normal human beings.

And then I saw two large men standing there.

I was suddenly facing my worst nightmare. Doom was upon us. Apocalypse. The end of the world as I knew it.

Quil and Embry were here.

I slowly lowered the beer bottle from my lips, my cheeks flushed with the heat that embarrassment brought.

"I can explain everything." I assured them, turning slowly to set down the bottles. I figured I had two options in this situation. Either I could try to explain to them what had happened, or I could throw the bottles at them and make a run for it. Unfortunately, I didn't think I'd get too far in my miniskirt.

"Guys? Um, are you going to…I mean, you're not going to explode or something, right? This really isn't near as bad as it looks." I stared down at my clothes, then back up at Quil.

Death was imminent.

"You've been drinking." Quil spoke quietly, yet I could hear his deep voice easily over the pounding music.

"No, I was just going to take an itsy, bitsy sip when I saw you." I assured him, wiping my sweating palms on my legs.

"You smell like booze." He grimaced down at me, disappointment written in every feature on his face.

Embry reached behind me to pick up the bottle of clear liquid and waved it in front of my face. "This, Claire, is pineapple rum."

"Oh," I whispered, feeling not only foolish, but rather betrayed, too.

"Meet us at the hotel." Quil told Embry and grabbed hold of one of my arms, easily dragging me through the sea of people and towards his car.

"Quil, listen I'm really sorry, but there's no need to be so dramatic." I flopped into the passenger seat and he took the liberty of buckling me in himself.

When he finally got around to the drivers side he slid in and turned to me. "I am so disappointed in you. I let you go visit your friends and you betray me by doing this?
That's it. No over-night stays until school starts."

I felt the anger bubble up inside me, much like it had this afternoon when Sam dropped me off at Delia's.

"I just can't believe that you would do this." He turned the ignition and pulled out, leaving the thrum of the party behind us.

"Me? You can't believe I would do this? You're not my keeper, Quil!" I threw my hands up in the air, exasperated. The small amount of alcohol I had ingested was making me brave- and rather stupid. "I can do whoever I want!"

"Who?" Quil looked over at me from the driver's seat, his face flashing from furious to bewildered faster than I could keep up.

"What! I meant what!" I slouched down in my seat.

"Do you have any idea-" Quil began, getting ready for another lecture.

"No! This isn't about me, it's about you! You're so...so…pig-headed that you can't see it, though. Can you?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Claire."

"I'm not being ridiculous and I'm not being childish or, or redundant or anything like that, either. You," I stabbed a finger in his direction, "Followed us up from Forks to spy on me because you thought I would be getting into trouble."

"And look what I found."

"That's not the point! The point is that you don't trust me. At all!"

"You're wrong, you know." He spoke quietly, his voice shaking slightly.

"I really don't care. If you're as curious as to why I was there you can go ahead and ask Jackson. He'll tell you I was being emotionally supportive to a dear friend of mine."

"What was Jackson doing there?" He clenched the steering wheel so tightly I thought he was going to rip it off.

"He was very civil. And he said he didn't have me pegged as the party type." I told him, crossing my arms over my chest in a desperate move to keep myself from breaking down.

"According to my book he didn't peg you at all." Quil gritted through his teeth, making me shudder.

"Quil!"

"What? Is there something that I should know about?"

I looked up at him defiantly, my jaw set, teeth clenched together. Then I made a very big mistake.