5 - The Beach
Forks was a small town bordered by a national park on the east and a native american reservation on the west. This translated to very few major roads and even fewer crossroads for me to get lost on; I would have made a very poor first impression if my debilitatingly poor navigation skills were revealed this quickly. For most of my life I had been the butt of the joke any time someone even mentioned the word lost; my family found it very amusing that while the technical aspects of following a map were very clear to me I would constantly get turned around. When we hunted for the infected every guardian used a GPS device that was guided by Aurora, this was a necessary tool as the terrain and locations of our assignments varied so much that even the best navigators could not keep up with the heterogenous landscapes we were expected to safeguard. This device was part of the technology that was imbedded in most of our skulls in order to facilitate our jobs as guardians. While most of my family tended to shut the navigation system off when not hunting my disability made me heavily reliant on Aurora's maps and therefore my internal GPS was constantly turned on; periodically I would turn it off hoping against hope that a miracle had occurred and my sense of direction after two thousand years of absence would suddenly appear - I was still waiting. The dilemma currently was that without the GPS my behavior would appear more normal, as a stranger to these parts not knowing which roads to take would have been a natural occurrence; however getting completely and utterly lost would made me look like a buffoon in the eyes of a girl I really needed to impress. In hopes of a compromise the GPS device was still turned on but I had not asked Aurora to direct me to a specific destination.
My plan was simple and therefore possibly doable even for me, Leah had asked for a ride but she had not specified that she wished to go home. I knew from Sam's thoughts that he had been directed by Sue Clearwater to take her daughter back home since she was busy with the Chief of Police. Leah had not stated that home was where she wished me to take her, I was fairly certain that she was too far gone in her defiance of that obnoxious boy to have given much thought as to where we were headed. Realistically I was aware that eventually she would at some point have to be safely delivered to her home but I was planning on taking a circuitous route in hopes of extending my time with the precious girl who was currently clinging to my back.
Despite my calm exterior a feeling of urgency caused me to increase my speed in the nearly deserted streets. An inexplicable feeling of dread had settled into my chest when I came to the realization that my Princess could still change her mind and decide it would be more prudent to go home with that nasty excuse for a boy. I needed to leave this place behind as quickly in case she had a change of heart. As we weaved our way out of town I tried to stay off the main road and away from prying eyes. It was unlikely that someone would recognize the girl concealed by the dark helmet, she was not even a resident of this town, but I did not want to risk running into someone she knew. Someone other than the hated Sam, a person who would not raise her temper; she might be eager to decline my offer of a ride for one from an acquaintance.
We had almost managed to escape from the town completely when we hit one last red light. I felt rather than heard her take in a big breath in anticipation of speaking. The fear began to increase so much inside of me that the stress was starting to leach into my body, it took all of my resolve not to tense my muscles. Despite my best attempts to stay calm my hearts were beating far too fast and if I was not careful the double heartbeat might betray my alien nature.
"Where are we going?" The relief at her simple words was nearly overwhelming. I wanted to laugh and shout with joy. She was not abandoning me yet. Her question had been delivered at a normal conversational volume, giving the impression that she was not used to riding motorcycles. I hoped to change this in the future, motorcycles and the speed associated them were a pleasure I wanted to share with my potential mate. Pretending not to hear her through the thick padding of both our helmets I waited impatiently to be moving again.
"Where are we going?" she asked again, this time loud enough that I could not feign ignorance especially when she coupled that with letting go of my waist in order to poke my shoulder.
"Now you ask me?" avoiding question without rousing suspicions was a skill I had mastered over a millennia ago. I did not hesitate to accelerate as soon as the light turned green and to my immense pleasure her hand went back around my waist. If I was going to be honest with myself our destination was not altogether decided.
The sensible move was to point my bike in a generally northwestern direction, this way we would hit the coastline and find the placid Pacific. The weather was cool enough to guarantee privacy in most outdoor places as no one would bother going to the beach today - the quickly increasing precipitation would make this very poor beach weather for humans. My distraught Princess was definitely not in the mood for company right now so taking her to a crowded place would be detrimental to my courtship. Though that was not the correct word to use at this time - both Blossom and Phila had forbidden me from pursuing a romantic relationship. I understood the need to take things slowly with Leah, life had dealt her a great many blows in the past few months. Despite the increased fortitude the werwolf genes she was in some ways a fragile little girl - one who missed her deceased father and could not connect with her remaining parent. I did not envy her these feelings, I could not begin to imagine losing one of my parents. For this reason alone I needed to be the strong one and set a slow and steady pace, this was harder to accomplish than I had anticipated; my body had been in a perpetual half aroused state since my first glimpse of her ass and now that she had her arms wrapped around me it had become a little more than just half aroused.
While taking her to a deserted beach would be more prudent there was a large part of me that wanted to simply take her away. In a few hours we could be in Seattle, after that Canada, and if I was going to go that far I might as well take her home to the island. My Princess was stuck inside of her tower surrounded a barrier made not of bricks but something much more sinister - unhappy memories. The people and places of this area brought forth many emotions, most of which she attempted to smother using fury. It was not a healthy place for her to be, the festering mental wounds would continue to build and fill with poison if she did not acknowledge their presence. With one emergency after another this summer it was easy to see how she avoided dealing with the demise of her father as well as the other losses she had experienced.
I wanted to rescue her from the people who gave her orders with little to no regard for her feelings, Sam had pushed her to the point of violence. This was a major red flag that should have been noticed by those around her but they were either inept or not paying attention. Wolves were more volatile than humans, the young ones especially tended to express their emotions by way of violence. This was not a problem when it came to boys, teenage males were disposed to being a rough crowd. The issue was that Leah was a female and it took a great deal of duress for a woman to throw a punch at a man. Normally this society trained women to use words or a man to protect themselves, Leah had been pushed to the brink and the only way she could survive was by lashing out physically at the man who sought to harm her. She had even gone so far as to try to escape with a total stranger, though some of that might have been her temper overruling reason. As much as enjoyed the fact that she had chosen me it was alarming that she had jumped on the back of a bike with a stranger. Leah needed serious help from a professional, Uncle William on the island would have been perfect. She could have been fully honest with him regarding what had really happened, while a human doctor could not even begin to understand her problems.
My resolve to take her to the beach wavered as I continued to add to the reasons why taking her to the safety of the island would be ideal, the situation with the Volturi did not help. In a few months time they would bring an army bend on destroying most of the Cullens and anyone who got in their way. As a wolf whose duty it was to protect this region my princess would be in the middle of this, and since the Volturi absolutely hated wolves she might as well wear a big red target on her back.
The safest option would have been to take her home to the island and protect her from everything. If I took her home she would have all the time in the world to gain perspective on her world, she could be taught the tools to deal with her temper as well as the losses in her life. She could be properly taught to fight by true warriors and not by foolish young children playing around. What did this Sam really know of strategy? Just because he was the first to phase did not magically gift him with tactical skills. Blood drinkers could be tricky because of their speed and intelligence, we were taught to kill them by practical experience. There was a wild planet that housed a prison for several of the toughest creatures that we could face. As part of our training one of these creatures would be released into the wilderness and we would be expected to hunt them down. The vampires were great because when you were finished all you had to do was put the pieces back together and you could recycle them for another set of students. Eventually though the vampire would give up and not try to run or fight, that was when we burned them.
The wolves had nothing of this sort to train their new recruits, instead they had Sam giving them orders that would cause severe pain if refused. I gripped my hand against the handles, trying to remind myself why it was wrong to take Leah away from all this. One though alone saved her from being kidnapped, if I were to take her to the island against her will I too would be taking away her choices and that in itself would make me no better than Sam. Leah would be allowed to decide her own fate, and when the time came perhaps she could be compelled to come home with me to the island. Conceivably she might be able to be persuaded to make the island her home, permanently, with me. The decision to let her pick was much harder than it should have been, all my instincts were screaming at me to protect her and make her feel better. I distracted myself by imagining her reaction to being taken to the island, unfortunately I would not gain the knowledge of her reaction today.
My little Princess would have to remain in this dark place for a while longer, but that did not mean I could not help guide her towards the brighter sections of the shadows that covered her small world. Speaking of the brighter spots, it was an interesting observation that every time I sped up the girl's arms would tighten around my waist, she would move forward slightly and her grip would strengthen. There was a direct correlation between my speed and how much she resembled a barnacle.
A gentleman would have slowed down in order to make her more comfortable, unfortunately for Leah chivalry was not really my thing. I was enjoying her arms around me a great deal too much. Even with four layers of clothing between us I could feel the heat radiating from her slight body as we followed the serpentine path through the woods.
The town was a good ten minutes behind us when I felt the change, her entire body which had been completely tense relaxed and molded itself more comfortably against my back. I might have only imagined the small sigh that left her lips, the wind was far too loud for even my acute hearing to discern such a slight sound. I barely suppressed my shout of victory, it might have been premature but maybe she had gained a few moments of joy out of the ride.
The celibate life of a monk was not for me, indeed I enjoyed sex a little too much; over the years I had been in the arms of my fair share of women. Aodh would not allow me to stay with any one woman so I had enjoyed a large variety of women, a an extremely large variety from the shy meek ones, the bold older matrons as well as the professional ladies of the night. Society these days looks down upon a man who pays for sex but there was a time not so long ago when it was impractical to get sex without paying for it. The practiced embraces of those highly trained women had not given me a tenth of the pleasure that was currently flowing through my body at the simple fact that my mate had her arm around my waist and her chin resting on my shoulder. While I enjoyed her arms around me, it was the knowledge that I had managed to help her forget her problems for a few moments that gave me the greatest satisfaction. I was upset at the stupid helmet and wished it was not required at these speeds since I dearly wanted to see her face. Had she lost her perpetual frown? If it was not for that annoying barrier would I have been able to see that smile I coveted?
Resigning myself to having to live without knowing the truth I pushed the engine to move a little faster, a quick flash of a vision revealed a potential beach close by. Aodh continued flashing images at me every thirty seconds or so, trying to compensate for my poor sense of direction. Maybe my spirit succeeded in directing me or it could be sheer luck but I successfully navigated my way to the water.
She untangled herself as soon as we stopped, her relaxed body suddenly filled with a hectic energy that screamed of desperation. It took everything in me to ignore the girl and instead look at our surroundings, at this time she did not need my hovering presence. I doubted she would welcome my embrace.
What she needed was another distraction, schooling my face into a look of confusion I scanned the beach around us. This was fairly typical for the beaches of this area, nothing like the hot powdery sand that made up the ones that could be found outside of Los Angeles. This place was not where you went to work on your tan or to show off your new breast implants, instead here was a place you came to enjoy nature as the gods intended it to look.
"What are you looking for?" she asked falling for my ruse.
"The beach, did I read the sign wrong?" lacing my voice with a tinge of confusion I shook my head a little, pretending to be concerned over the fact that we were missing the blinding sand that managed to get into every crevice you could think of. No matter how romantic sex on the beach sounded in theory, the reality was not altogether that much fun because sand was not a good lubricant.
I pretended to be not at all that interested in her words, a blatant lie but now was not the time to show my cards. Years of training allowed me to move causally and pick up a piece of paint that had fallen from the neglected picnic table. I allowed the tension to flow only through my arm, vented my frustration at not being able to console her in a more physical way.
"This is a beach," she told me with a small laugh. The quiet sound surprised us both, she looked up at me uncertainly perhaps wondering if that rusty sound had come out of her throat. My impression was that the pat few months had not giver her much to laugh about, it seemed she was out of practice. I had managed to make her giggle, a great deal of pride that was out of proportion with the small feat of making her laugh flooded my body. In the past few days of stalking her no one had come even close to making her smile let alone laugh, perhaps her brother but even he had not been able to elicit her laughter. I allowed myself another small peek at her face, for a fraction of a second the perpetual frown was replaced by a slight lifting of her cheeks. It was not quite a smile but it was enough to satisfy me for now. Her pretty brown eyes sparkled, filled with mirth at my expense. I wanted nothing more than to join in that laughter but that would have been out of place, instead I allowed myself a small smile.
Locking my muscles against the need to touch her again I leaned down to obtain another piece of ammunition. I would have to be careful to use only human strength when throwing my projectile. She gracefully climbed to the top of that rock, her slender toes gripping the jagged edges of the stone in her ascent to the top. It was amazing how much this small girl attracted me, having just heard her laugh I wanted more; soon several plans began to form in my mind, my intent was to hear that beautiful sound over and over again.
It astonished me how little discipline I had over my impulses, after throwing one last piece of paint at the stone across the water I headed in her direction. Not wanting to crowd her I remained at the bottom of the stone, her body had regained its earlier tension. Her peace had only lasted a few minutes, she was lost again in her dark thoughts. Physically she was standing high on a rock, staring out across the water but I did not need to use my mind reading skills to know that thoughts were elsewhere. Her distraction was an opportunity to observe her, for once I did not feel like a pervert when watching her. Her short cropped hair had become soaked in the drizzle and was now plastered to her shapely head. Leah was one of a minority of women who could carry off the wet hair look, she did not need to hide flaws behind bangs or curls. Nor did she need make-up or other such devices because her complexion was absolutely pure and clear of any defects. I wanted to run my fingers across those high cheekbones, would they really be as sharp as they looked? I never thought that ears were all that sexy but the small cinnamon colored shells beckoned for a kiss or possibly a taste.
She reminded me of a figurehead at the front of a ship, still and motionless as she faced the oceans of life - constantly being buffeted by the waves. What would she do if I stood next to her and promised I would always be by her side no matter what? Would she welcome my embrace or try to push me off of her perch?
It was with much pain that that I noticed the shift in her demeanor, it was verging on despair now. One so young had not lived enough to be this miserable. That did not change her emotions, I looked around for a way to distract her.
"That is an awesome right hook you got there Princess." I smiled at the name, she would not appreciate me calling her that. "Remind me not to piss you off," while this society might not like violence I had no problem with it, my only fear was that she had done it out of desperation. Despite that I could still admire her for the hit, had her fist connected with that Sam creature's face it would have done serious damage.
It took her a moment to reply but when she did it was with a smile, even though she tried to hide it from me I could see the lifting of those pretty cheeks. "A little piece of advice then, don't call me Princess." She made a face at the name I had chosen for her, she disliked being called that.
"What would you like me to call you then?" I was much better at hiding my smile, but now when her face distracted me. Looking away I tried to compose myself, it would not help to smile right now and give away my game. I did not look at her when she spoke again, wanting me to call her by her given name. My Princess had missed the point, Princess was her name and it had been such almost from the moment I first saw her.
"Sorry, I have a hard time with names," I told her, relieved to note that the haggard look of despair had dissipated.
"But you can remember Princess? How is that?" Her voice had taken on a more playful tone, and so I replied in kind by pointing out her ability to throw a tantrum.
With a single leap she was off her rock and within a foot of me, eyes flashing with anger as she shouted out her denial of my observation. It was probably not the best choice to point out that she was indeed fond of throwing tantrums but I could not help myself but tease her a little - one flick of my hand in her general direction to indicate her continued support of my statement. Otherwise I kept my face neutral, well aware of the volatile nature of wolves, she was still young and unable to control her mood swings. This characteristic was not one exclusive to the shapeshifting wolves, excessive emotions tended to go hand in hand with heightened senses. One set of my cousins could completely block all emotions, their kind were a product of and experiment that tried to push human emotions and intuition to the max - the results had been a very volatile and violent group that could not function as a society. The ones who had managed to survive this failed experiment ended up doing so by completely shutting off all feelings, it was an arduous task that many spent their entire lifetime struggling to perfect. Those of the Sedo who truly could clamp down and stop feeling were revered and held positions of great power among their people.
It was interesting to note that while the Sedo chose to suppress their violent tendencies my people went the opposite way. The ferocity of my father's people was legendary, the savagery of their society known across several planets. The man who had shared with them the space technology that allowed for travel between planets had been put to death for releasing such a scourge on the unsuspecting inhabited planets in the region. I could easily relate to Leah's volatile temper, having had to deal with it myself. While getting angry and punching through a wall was completely acceptable among my father's people on Earth it was somewhat of a faux pas.
It was my Uncle William who had helped me master my own temper, he was a Sedo and knew a few things about how to tamp down emotions. It is very hard to continue to be angry when there is no provocation, few of us without a great deal of internal turmoil will continue to rage if everything around us is calm. This is what I did for Leah at this time, employing all of my millennia of control I made sure to appear unperturbed despite the close proximity of a furious but at the same time sexy as hell woman.
Her face went through a myriad of emotions, the speed of the changes were so swift that it became impossible to discern the meaning behind them. After about a minute her face finally settled into one of concern. She had pulled her body back slightly and curved those beautiful shoulder downwards, was she anticipating a blow? I was tempted to search through her mind for answers but reading her thoughts felt disrespectful.
Hoping to bring back her earlier good mood and realizing that she had her temper in hand made me want to continue to tease her. "And the other reason to call you Princess, is you seem to require a lot of rescuing."
"Ok just once, but don't let it go to your head." The begrudging to tone of her voice was amusing. It appeared that my Princess had an independent streak a mile wide and did not want any prince charming coming along and rescuing her.
"I am under the impression that you would swiftly deflate any ego." It was becoming increasingly harder to appear apathetic, when what I really wanted was grab her and crush my mouth against those pale pink lips. I was willing to risk her breaking my jaw afterwords for one little taste.
"You may not call me Princess!" she yelled in my face once more. Her voice might have been raised but her expression looked much calmer than earlier. Those cute brown eyes were flashing and my will crumbled. Losing my tight grip on the profusion of emotions that had been coursing through my body ever since I had first seen her my smile broke through. After two thousand years I had finally found her, the woman my spirit had chosen to be my perfect mate. Since first seeing her a few days ago my Princess had been angry, mean, spiteful, nasty and sarcastic - a lesser man would have been unnerved by such a display. I was not a mere mortal, in fact for the first time in my very long life I was thoroughly in love.
"All right... Princess." I continued to smile hoping she would not think I was laughing at her. Leah capitulated with a sigh. I decided it was best to change the topic before I did something stupid like call her 'my Princess' and try to steal a kiss. She did not acknowledge the change in topic instead looked away from me yet again, this would have been frustrating had it not given me the opportunity to stare at her once again. I was acting like a completely infatuated puppy.
Taking her home was one of the hardest things I had done ever, my every instinct screamed at me to turn the other way and take her to the safety of the island. It did not help to know that the detestable Sam would be waiting for us when we reached our destination.
The reservation was easy enough to reach, again the lack of choices helped me navigate. The speed with which we took the rather slick roads was dangerous but Aodh and I were working in conjunction to make sure to keep Leah safe. Aodh would warn me right before we would hit a slick spot and I would use my skills to prevent an accident. We were traveling at higher speeds than before, I was determined to help Leah get back to those carefree moments she had experienced on our first ride. Again I enjoyed the feel of her slim body pressed up against mine, she had relaxed against my back much faster than before. I was a thief and a liar, stealing this small embrace and deluding myself into thinking it was something more than her holding on for dear life. For a few minutes I could pretend she thought I was something more than a stranger, the feel of slender arms around me was addictive.
There was only one road into the reservation, an old faded sign marked the border of the place. The first bifurcation of the road resulted in me taking the wrong turn, this was done on purpose as she had given me poor instructions and as an outsider I would not know the way to her home. I was not far enough gone in my infatuation to forget the almost instinctual need to keep my secrets.
She tapped on my shoulder again, this being her preferred method of gaining my attention and pointed her thumb back towards the other road. My u-turn was done swiftly, we were supposed to be racing to get her home before Sue Clearwater. It amused me to no end that this girl would face a vampire army of newborns yet was afraid of her mother's disapproval.
After a few more missed turns and going down a dead end street Leah finally got her thoughts together and noticed that it would be best to tell me which direction to go at every turn. Out of the corner of my eye I could see her slightly shaking her head as she softly giggled. This helmet might have to be permanently glued to my head because I could not help but smile at the slight sound - it would not do to reveal how much each and every sign of her good mood effected me.
Sam's thought's became audible before we had even reached the house. While I tried to stay out of Leah's head, Sam was not given the same courtesy. The content of his thoughts was vital, how else was I to intervene when he did something to upset my princess? Currently his mind was filled with a hodgepodge of thoughts, flying from paranoia regarding my intentions to the lecture he was planning on giving Leah when she arrived back. His disorderly mind was not helping me anticipate his next moves and Aodh was silent regarding Sam's future behaviour.
The tension slowly crept back into Leah's body as I turned onto the empty driveway, Sue Clearwater was still socializing with Chief Swan. So that was one less problem for Leah to face right now. I stopped much attention to Sam instead concentrating on the girl in front of me, she appeared reluctant as she handed the helmet back to me. Was it too early to tell her to keep it? Probably, but that did not mean I did not want to. I watched my brave girl square her shoulders and take a deep breath before turning around to face wolf pacing on her home's front porch.
"Where have you been?" It took everything in me not to go kick his ass when he greeted her with an accusatory shout. Note to self, keep Leah away from Sam for both our sakes. Between Leah and I, one of us was going to kill this little boy. It was becoming increasingly hard to come up with reasons to leave the boy alive.
"Just go home Sam," I hear Leah say quietly. My body tensed at the sound, this was not right. When she was arguing with me there was a little bit of frustration and some amusement in her voice. Now her face looked haggard, she appeared pressed down by a larger burden than a nineteen year old girl should be carrying.
I had to intervene, but kicking the boys ass would look suspicious. I went with the only alternative I had. "I was worried about your daddy with a shotgun, I must say this scenario never crossed my mind," I tried to inject a little bit of levity into the situation. I wanted my fighting Leah back.
"Fortunately for you my daddy was a fisherman, and not that much into hunting. But that does not matter, my father died a few months ago. So the risk of you being shot by my daddy is pretty low," she tried to continue the joke. It was easy to see through her feeble attempts at the joke, her attempts though increased my respect for her. While this depression might have pulled her into the dark abyss she was still fighting to get out. Once again I had to forcefully clear my face of emotion before I gave away too much of my feelings, this was getting to be ridiculous I had not been this out of control since I was a twenty five and all of my powers came in full force.
"What about your family?" she asked ignoring the boy behind him.
"My family?" Lost in admiration for her tenacity despite her lack of progress, I foolishly gave her an honest answer. "Yeah they would shoot you if I brought you home. Nothing personal, my mother does not like people." This was somewhat of a lie, my mother would love her simply because I had chosen her, but she would shoot anyone else. No one other than family was allowed on the island, so my mother would kill for security reasons. "She would not use a shotgun, she would probably use a sniper rifle, just to make sure you were dead." My mother was the one who had helped design the bullets that could penetrate the hard skin of the blood drinkers, she took her weapons seriously.
"Is your father still alive?" Her pink lips twisted upwards making me want to smile in return.
"My father?" I pulled myself together this time making sure to tell the truth without giving too much away. It was harder than it should have been, my mind was scrambling trying to find the words to turn her half-smile into a real one. "Oh yeah he is still alive. He has tried several novel ways of committing suicide but fortunately for him they never seem to work. He calls it part of being an adrenaline junkie. Luckily we tend to be a long lived bunch - good genes and all that jazz - we rarely get sick." Really good genes that make us immortal, and the alien technology that was far beyond anything on Earth helped us remain at peak performance. "Well we had a few die young but usually they were from "unnatural" causes, if you know what I mean. For example, my grandfather died very heroically saving a young girls life." The irony of it was lost to Leah, she did not know my grandfather had been a politician and a King. She did not know that Garath had not been one to notice individuals but had always focused on groups of people. It was almost amusing that he had died to save one young girl, who in the end turned out to be somewhat of a useless individual.
"That is nice, well kind of. Your family must be proud." She replied in a hesitant voice, sounding almost polite.
"Not really, my grandmother was furious with him for dying on her. Sometimes I think he died just to get away from her." She was angry because she was pregnant with triplets at the time and he had decided to do something impulsive and foolish when his family needed him. I sometimes wondered if my mother would have turned out differently had her father been around to raise her, though from my Uncle Michael's accounts he had not been a very attentive father. Preferring to take care of his people as opposed to his children.
Leah made a confused sound bringing me back to the present.
"Grandma has a few quirks, but who doesn't when you get as old as she is?" She was over ten thousand years old, allowances had to be made.
"Maybe you should go visit her, she might be missing you?" Sam's grating voice was an unwelcome interruption.
"I just visited her a few days ago, she was doing great, still as sharp as ever. She did commend me for taking some time off work to relax. Life is short and all that." I had no choice but to tell her about Leah, she had again reiterated the fact that she wanted the Cullens and wolves to be kept in the dark until after the Volturi had made their appearance. She then proceeded to tell me how to properly go down on a woman, it was a prank. At least I hoped so, at times her jokes bordered on juvenile.
Sam tried to get rid of me again, his mind riddled with implausible scenarios regarding my reasons for remaining. Seriously why the fuck would I want that annoying little Emily when I had Leah right here? It was impossible to understand how he could have possibly chosen Emily over Leah. His loss was my gain.
I ignored the boy and his ridiculous thoughts as I said my final goodbyes to my Princess.
"Bye Phil, thanks for the ride. It was fun, we might have to do that again." Leah waved me off pleasantly.
"Anytime, see you later." I replied while putting on my helmet, she had no idea that it would be much sooner than later. I was reluctant to leave her to deal with the boy alone, not that I was afraid he could physically harm her. Despite her smaller size Leah was vicious and underhanded enough to win a fight, plus her brother would be home soon and he would support his sister. I was afraid for her mental well being, just being away from him and this place that held such unhappy memories had made her appear happier than she had been in the past week.
I was headed back to the cabin, planning on dropping off my bike and changing into my stalking clothes before heading back to Leah. As I pulled into the garage Aodh hit me with a vision. A small boy with hunched shoulders was furiously pummeling the innocent ball against the side of a building. His dark hair was tangled around his dirty face, frustration evident in the square jaws.
It appeared my plans would have to be changed, I called Phila to tell her about them. "Can you watch Leah for tonight, it looks like my son needs his father to come visit."
"Why is there anything wrong?" While Phila could not understand my attachment to the boy I had rescued all those years ago, she had learned to just go along with my need to protect my son.
"I don't know, all I saw was my grandson and he looked upset. I will try to be back before the morning. Please watch over my Leah." I rubbed my temples, the building tension an indication that if I was not careful a severe headache would soon follow.
"Call me if you need me to join you," Phila's offer was less than genuine.
I could not help but laugh, "I don't need any added strife." My son absolutely loathed Phila, part of this might have been due to their first meeting. Phila had told me to slit the boy's throat and be done with it; her words might have sounded cruel but they were not intended as such. Phila was from an experiment that made it nearly impossible for her to feel empathy towards other, family was an exception to this rule but otherwise she was not bothered by the suffering of others. Telling me to kill the boy was good advice, and I should have probably done so considering he had no family left. I don't know what impulse made me take the boy in and raise him as my own, probably some deep seated need to connect to something and anything. A romantic relationship had beed denied to me due to Aodh, so I was going for the paternal one. Needless to say things had not always worked out as I anticipated because I had genes from that experiment, rendering me incapable of making a connection with those outside of my family.
A/N: All right what do you think? Please? With Phil on top of it? Naked Phil?
Princessx: Glad you like Phil, he is actually a very fun OC and sometimes even I forget that he is not part of the original story.
MargotTenser: I hope this helped showcase some of Phil's temperament, the next chapter is going to be much darker since I am trying to explain how little he feels for outsiders. I am afraid people will hate Phil if I do this but I want to show what it actually is for Phil to have connected with Leah. Part of the reason he pulls her to be alone together is because he is greedy but part of it is because he is afraid Leah will see how fake he is when around others.
Phil's Phan: Yeah Sam ordering everyone around made me angry as well, honestly I think he was at times either inept or just a bully.
MeMeMeMeeee: is it wrong that I think of Invader Zim whenever I see your name? Alpha order bad, taking away people's choices is something that irks me in real life.
Connect2tjb: I admit it is fun doing dark Phil sometimes. Trying to explain the change in his feeling is much harder than I thought. Next chapter is going to be helpful with that, I hope.
Hgmsnoopy: SNOOOPY, sorry I had to say that. In my opinion Sam is just a poor kid that was thrust into power and he does not have the experience or the personality to deal with it well.
Inosolan: Yes he is worried, I don't think Leah understands how much her presence in his life really means to him. It is also fun watching him struggle to control his reactions. Glad you like Phil's point of view.
Yenahcoral: Thanks for the message of encouragement.
