-Chapter Forty-Eight-


"What's going on with you?" I snapped at Gunner as soon as we were alone in his car. He rolled his bloodshot hazel eyes toward me, slowly. How much had he drank?

"What's going on with you?" He turned the question back at me. "I didn't know my sister had a hobby of lying to me."

I felt the blood chill in my veins. "What are you talking about?"

Gunner clumsily reached a finger out, tracing the scars on my cheek. "I know someone hurt you. Still hurting you."

"Who told you?" I asked him, closing my hand over his. I gave it a squeeze, making him pay attention to me when his head lolled back against the seat. "Who?"

Bella Swan's name came out of my brother's mouth in such a slurred, garbled way that I nearly didn't understand him. I had to turn it over in my head several times before it became clear to me.

"Gunner," I said slowly, carefully. I felt myself getting angry, so I let go of Gunner's hand, afraid I would- accidentally hurt him. "What did Bella tell you?"

"Maisie, I think I'm gonna puke," Gunner said instead. I leaned over him, opening the door for him and guiding him forward. He did throw up, and I hoped all of it landed on Mike's lawn and not on Gunner's car.

When he turned back to me, his face was sallow under the bright shade of his red hair. I sighed. "Stay here. I'll go get you some water."

"No," Gunner slurred, hand shooting out to grab my wrist. "You stay."

He was not looking at me. Instead, Gunner's gaze was above my head. I looked over my shoulder to see Jasper and Jacob not far off. The night shrouded them in shadows, but I could still see from their tense posture that they must have been arguing.

"He's different, isn't he? All the Cullens are? They…don't kill…right?" The alcohol was making Gunner free with his words.

"No. They don't." I thought I might cry. Scratch that; I was crying. I felt the hot tears running down my cheeks, dropping from my chin to plop onto my jeans.

Sure, I had briefly entertained the idea of Gunner and Leah. But I didn't want this for my brother. I didn't want him in this world, where there was a looming danger that visited me nightly in my dreams.

"Good. 'Cause I always liked Jasper and I didn't wanna have to hate him." Gunner slurred out. "But the other one, the one that hurt you. She kills people?"

Yeah, I thought. Maria kills people as sure as I'm going to kill Bella.

I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself. It did nothing to quell the wildfire of anger I felt within myself.

"Yeah," I told Gunner. "She does."

This time when I made a move toward the door, Gunner didn't stop me. Somehow, I managed to shut the car door with a soft click. I was surprised I walked across the snowy ground instead of running to where Bella stood tucked under Jacob's arm.

"Maisie," Jasper cautioned. He could feel my anger, I knew, but he did nothing to try to temper it. I spared a look at him over my shoulder. There was a warning there, in the dark gold of his eyes.

"Jasper," I mimicked back at him without meaning to. He wasn't who I was mad at. There was no reason for me to be snippy at him, but I couldn't help myself.

Do not hit her, I told myself at first. I was too angry. I had no idea of knowing what damage I would do. Just a handful of weeks ago, I had managed to cave in the chest of a newborn vampire. Not that it had done my any good, but still.

Then I saw the smug look on Bella's face. I felt something give inside me, causing my thoughts to alter instantly. Do not hit her hard.

Jasper's hand just barely missed catching my fist in time. Maybe I was too fast, or maybe Jacob wasn't expecting me to act, because he made no moves to block me.

I punched Bella in the face. The eye, to be exact. I tried to do it softly. Given that her eye stayed in the socket and there was no crack of bones, I guess I succeeded. She only stayed upright, I was certain, because of Jacob's arm around her.

"What the hell?!" Jacob exploded. His reaction was instant. He pushed me away from him and Bella, hard enough that my feet actually left the ground. My back collided with Jasper's chest, knocking the air out of me, making my ears ring.

Vaguely, I felt Jasper's arm encircle my waist. Heard his snarl over the ringing in my ears. "I'll only tell you once not to touch her again, dog."

I turned my head sidelong, checking on Gunner. Taking a gulp of air, I found enough breath to speak. "You had no right. He's my brother. Mine."

I glared at Jacob. He was still watching my face, though Bella had turned hers to sob into his shirt. I watched his expression, which was flicking between anger and hatred and something faltering.

"You know she's not wrong." Leah's voice. When had Leah gotten here? I had been so focused on Jacob and on Gunner that I didn't realize we weren't alone anymore. From somewhere behind us, I heard Edward mutter a dammit, Maisie. He must have been listening in on Jacob's thoughts.

I didn't care, though. I would do it again. I would hurt Bella worse, if I could, I was sure, for what she had done.

"Don't 'dammit, Maisie' me," I grumbled in Edward's general direction. I disentangled myself from Jasper's arm, crunching my way over the snow back toward my brother. I didn't realize, at first, that Leah had fallen in line beside me.

"I hate her." She enthused as we walked. "We tell Jacob all the time that she's a liability. Do you think he listens to us? Hell no."

It didn't click, at first. The pieces didn't fit themselves together in my head until I reached for the handle on the car door. But then, my hand stilled, and I tipped my head back.

"Leah…?" I ventured, not even putting a name to my suspicion. The blush bloomed like roses in her cheeks and she averted her gaze.

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Well, help me with him, at least. Dumbass took the driver's seat and he obviously can't drive right now. Watch out, he puked over there."

Between the two of us, we managed to help Gunner around the car and into the passenger seat. He let his head loll against the window, and I flinched when I saw him smack his stitches against the glass. They were supposed to come out tomorrow. I hoped they lasted the rest of the night.

"Did she tell him that part?" I asked Leah.

"I don't think so. I think her goal here was just to pull one over on you. She's been furious since Jacob told her the truth that you never gave in to telling her when she probed."

"She's such a fucking idiot." I couldn't stop myself from swearing. Leah only laughed, her breath forming gauzy clouds in front of her mouth.

"You can say that again."

"Are you going with us?" I directed it at Leah, but looked over at Jasper as I said it, too. It was a question for both of them. "I'm not staying here. Neither is Gunner."

I was still angry. With some distance, I saw that it was only Emmett and Edward who had come. Though Edward still wore a reproachful look, Emmett smiled and gave me a thumbs up. Jasper turned quickly to his brothers, tilting his head in the general direction of home. Emmett's smile slipped from his face. Unfortunately for him, there would be no further fighting tonight.

"Jake's gonna get it from Sam," Leah told me. "As much as I would love to see that, I'll go with you."

She slid into the passenger seat directly behind Gunner. I waited for Jasper, watching him stride toward me.

"I'm sorry," I told him. I felt like crying all over again. For some reason, I expected Jasper to be mad at me.

To my relief and surprise, he cupped my face in his hands and kissed my mouth. "I don't blame you. Do you want me to drive?"

"No, that's okay." I still had Gunner's keys in my hand. I had held onto them when I punched Bella. Uncurling my hand, I saw that my skin wore the imprint of them. "I want to be up there with him."

We could have put him in the back seat, I suppose. But Gunner had already fallen asleep, and I didn't want to move him again. Jasper opened the car door for me and softly shut it as I started the engine.

"Oh, Jasper, your motorcycle." The roar of Jacob and Bella's own motorcycles had reminded me. They were leaving, too. From the backseat, I heard both Jasper and Leah laugh.

"I'll come back for it," Jasper reassured me.

My parents were at a New Year's party themselves. One of dad's colleagues was throwing one, and given the hour, I suspected Ava was long asleep with all the other. It wasn't quite midnight. The most important thing, though, was that no one was home.

"I've got him." Jasper slid Gunner from the front passenger seat. He lifted his unconscious weight effortlessly, as if my brother weighed nothing at all. I shook my head at Gunner, unlocking the front door and quickly punching in the alarm code before it could go off.

"Will you take him to his room?" I asked. Jasper mounted the stairs and climbed them so slowly, careful not to jostle Gunner whatsoever. I sighed after they disappeared into Gunner's bedroom and ran my hands through my hair. "This is a mess."

"That's Bella for you." I motioned vaguely toward the couch, inviting Leah to sit. As I was a wonderfully nice sister, I got water and Tylenol from the kitchen to take to Gunner.

Jasper met me on the stairs. I couldn't conjure any words, but he took a moment to pause. My hands were full, so Jasper settled on giving my arm a soft, reassuring squeeze.

"We will fix it," he whispered to me.

Gunner lay comfortably on his side. Bless Jasper for knowing not to lay him on his back. He had even taken off Gunner's shoes and pulled his trashcan close to the bed. I ran my hands through my hair again.

I was so frustrated that I couldn't even put it into words. Frustrated with the fact that Gunner was asleep, so I couldn't talk to him. Frustrated that the only information he had to go off came from Bella.

Not to mention I was still seething over Bella's role in this whole thing. Maybe Rosalie had been right about something being done about the idiot a long time ago. I left the water and medicine next to Gunner's bed for him before heading back downstairs.

Leah was explaining things to Jasper, each of them sitting on one end of the couch. I had always considered the two of them to be on good terms, but obviously the discord that ran between vampires and werewolves ran pretty deep.

"She's the worst kind of wildcard." Considering the ample amount of space left on the couch, I made myself comfortable between the two of them. I had room to stretch out my legs, laying back against Jasper's chest.

"Agreed. For all of her academic intelligence, the girl seems to lack self-preservation and the ability to think ahead. And here I thought Maisie was impulsive." I rolled my eyes at his teasing, even if he couldn't see me.

"At least when I do something rash and stupid, it eventually works out in the end," I defended myself. "If it weren't for some kind of divine intervention, Bella would have been taken out by natural selection forever ago."


Gunner slept through the night. I didn't sleep much at all. Jasper spent the night with me, and we talked strategy all through the night.

"It would be safer for him if you only told him what you have to," Jasper had cautioned me. "Leah will fill in the rest, in time, I'm sure."

Yeah. Because Leah had imprinted on my brother. Which, technically, was a great thing and something I had asked for. Yet, at the same time, I wasn't sure how I felt about it. On the one hand, I was really happy because I knew that Gunner would be loved and protected in this new world Bella had ungraciously thrown him into.

On the other hand, I still wasn't sure how the whole imprinting thing worked. I didn't want Gunner to be forced into something, to have his free will taken from him. Leah had soothed some of my concerns by telling me that she saw no reason to bring it up with him any time soon.

"He's got enough occupying his mind right now."

My bedroom and Gunner's bedroom shared a wall. The walls in our house weren't exactly thin, so I sat with my back against our shared wall like a creep so I could listen for any signs that Gunner was awake.

I was rewarded at nearly noon, when I heard signs of life in the form of the most unenthusiastic groan I had ever heard in my life. It was enough for me to leave my room in favor of Gunner's.

"I see you have survived to witness a new year." I wasn't even speaking loud, but Gunner touched a hand to his forehead anyway.

"Whisper voices," he croaked out, which is something our mom would tell Ava when she got too excited.

"There's water next to your bed. And Tylenol, because I'm a great sister. I even drove your car home."

Gunner popped two pills in his mouth and washed them down with three big gulps of water. "Sister of the year."

I waited for consciousness to fully come to him. He scratched his head, making his hair stand up on end. When he rubbed his eyes, he was careful not to disturb his stitches. He scrubbed at his face with his hands and then finally, his tired eyes found mine.

"So, are you gonna tell me what Bella was going on about last night?"

He explained to me what Bella told him. How she made the claim that the Quileute tribe were werewolves and the Cullens were vampires. How he hadn't believed her and thought she was just drunk, but she had dragged him outside into the trees behind Mike's house and made Jacob show him.

How seeing Jacob shapeshift had scared him, and how he had drank more than his fair share of the bottle of vodka one of the other junior boys had brought. That's how I had come to find him nearly drunk off his feet not long after.

"Well," I told Gunner, taking a seat on the bed beside him. "Do you believe Bella?"

"I watched Jacob Black turn into a fucking wolf, so, yeah, I believe her about that. But the Cullens?"

I shrugged. I couldn't deny it from him, not really. "What color are Jasper's eyes?"

He was confused enough by the question that he glared at me.

"No, really. I'm making a point. Tell me what color his eyes are."

"I don't know, like a weird amber-brownish color. Kind of gold looking."

"And," I was picking my words, trying to get him to where I wanted him to be without having to tell him outright, "what color eyes did that guy we almost hit have?"

"Red." Gunner answered instantly. "So, they aren't vampires?"

I bit my lip. I didn't know how to make Gunner understand when his thought processes were subdued thanks to his hangover.

"Not in the traditional sense," I finally gave in. "They don't hunt humans. They survive off animal blood instead."

"But Dr. Cullen…" Gunner started. He let his sentence fall off when his bedroom door opened, revealing our mom.

"Good, you two are awake." From her rumpled hair and puffy eyes, it wasn't hard for me to guess that my mom was also hungover. "Gunner, honey, your appointments at two."

Mom tapped her own forehead in the spot that mirrored where Gunner's were.

"I remember." If Mom noticed anything off about Gunner, she didn't comment. "Maisie can go with me, right?"

The relief was obvious on her face. "If she doesn't mind. Thank you, Maisie."

"Just pay attention to his eyes," I whispered to Gunner once Mom left. "Or Rosalie's, or Emmett's, or Edward's, or Alice's, or Esme's. They're different, I promise you that."

I knew that before I could explain to Gunner about Maria, he needed to understand that neither Jasper nor his family would ever hurt him.

"You know, if you just didn't talk to Bella, all of this would be fine right now. I think it's in the sibling code not to talk to people your sibling hates."

"Yeah, well, you talk to Lauren every day, so that doesn't really count, does it?"

The fact that Gunner could still argue with me as I drove us to Forks General seemed like a good omen to me. Perhaps things would work out better than I was anticipating.


A/N: So, I didn't realize I needed this in my life until I read silentmayhem's review on Ch. 46 but...I really freaking want Gunner and Leah to be together. So it's happening. Thank you, silentmayhem, for sparking that epiphany in my mind. Judging by some other reviews left, I think we're all going to be excited about this!

I'm so excited to explore this further! It changes some of the subplots I originally had in mind, but in a great way, I think.