Chapter Fifty-Two: Carlie

I left Emmett and Carlisle at the main house and went round the back in the direction of the cottage. My path trailed off on a tangent, weaving through the dense forest that followed the lay of the valley. With my eyes set on the far distance, my mind lapsed back to the Amazon. Whoever had made the markings here, had also been there, to Nahuel's coven. As crazy as it sounded, could Nahuel have etched them? If he had stumbled upon the spell or whatever it was, then was that how he had kept himself safe from the Volturi for all those years? Maybe it wasn't the waterfall that masked his scent, maybe there were symbols hidden in the rocks?

But Carlisle had dated the lines around my cottage to approximately a month ago before Nahuel came back to Forks with us. It couldn't have been him.

I pulled my cell from my pocket and started tapping in the numbers.

"Mom?" I said, after what seemed like an inordinate amount of beeps.

"Nessie!" She exclaimed, down the phone.

"Have you met up with them yet?" There was such a crackle on the line that I found myself shouting just to get heard.

"Not yet, we're trying a new route. Your father wanted to fly, so we're just at an Brazilian airfield."

"What? You can't take plane into the jungle."

She laughed. "Not a plane, sweetie. A helicopter. Jazz will pilot it."

"Oh. Well will you call when you've seen them."

"Of course," she said. A great whirring started up in the background.

"Mom?" I said.

"I think we're gonna have to go, hon."

"No, wait. I wanna ask you something?" I said. "You know those horizontal lines we've been seeing?"

The phone crackled. "I can hardly hear you, sweetie. Can we talk when we get back to the airfield?"

"Those lines, mom. We've found them all around the place where Nahuel was killed. Emmett thinks they may be something to do with invisibility? Do you know anything about that?"

"The whirring sound jumped up a notch. "I can't hear you but I really have to go," she said. "I'll ask your father about inviting them back and call you when I can."

I was about to repeat the word 'invisibility', but the line went dead. Great.

I stowed my cell away and looked up to a silvery-grey fuzz flash across my peripheral vision. Not even a second later, another flash of fur streaked across the bushes ahead. Then it rested by the trees, flashing jet-black almond eyes.

"I can see you Leah, so you can stop spying on me." My voice bounced across the river.

The grey fur winced back, retreating behind a heavy cluster of shrubberies. I started to run after her, but it set her off on the defensive and she bounded away. I chased her over the river, and through the forest for some time before I hit the main road.

Jacob must have sent her to check up on me, because he was too scared to return. Too scared to own up to what he'd done.

Leah leapt across the road before a red pickup truck came into view. I slowed, shrinking back into the trees until it passed. By the time it was out of sight, so was Leah. I crossed the road anyway, and scoured around.

"I know you can hear me Leah," I shouted into the distance. "So stay away from me." I heard nothing, and started to wonder whether she was indeed out of earshot. Well at least she'd have nothing to report back. I was getting on with my life just fine without him. At least I hoped that's what she'd deduce.

I didn't follow Leah any farther. She was headed back to the Reservation, and I didn't want to go there. Not after what Jacob had done. Although I felt ready to see him again, if nothing more than to hear his explanation, I just couldn't. I thought of Sofia Alonzo. She'd committed the most heinous of crimes but not even Carlisle, who had once loved her, was prepared to protect her. That's how I must be; I mustn't let my heart eclipse what was right, and his actions were definitely not right.

I turned back to cross the road again, but had to wait while another car passed. After a few moments, I heard thick breathing from behind me. I spun round, convinced it would be him; that Leah was simply luring me away from home so Jacob could speak to me without my family around.

But it wasn't, it was Leah again.

After a moment she turned from me and phased back into human form; the bare skin of her back came into view partly exposing her sharp shoulder blades through the wisps of silky black hair. She pulled a plain T-shirt over her head, then turned meeting my gaze.

"What were you doing over by my house, Leah?" I said. "Did Jacob send you? Are you spying on me now?"

She advanced gingerly towards me. "No," she said, walking with an awkwardness that held her feet back. "But we should probably talk about Jacob."

I sighed and started to move away. "I'm not interested, I'm done with Jacob and his fights and I don't appreciate him sending a messenger."

"He didn't send me," she snapped back. "And I wasn't planning to talk to you, to even have this discussion. Besides we should be the ones angry at you for that fight. Sam is so mad he forbade us from coming near."

"At me? So why did you, Leah?"

She twisted on the spot and ushered me further into the forest away from the passing traffic on the road. "Now that we are talking about it, it would be helpful to know exactly what Jake told you when he came here, the morning after the fight." As she spoke, pained lines creased her forehead.

"Why?" I said.

Surely she'd already know his story; presumably they'd devised it together?

"We don't know exactly what went on, and we're trying to get to the bottom of it." Leah's hazel eyes filled with a sorrow the depth of the ocean, but she brushed her hand over her face defiantly and tried to pick up her stoic demeanor.

"Jacob killed Nahuel," I said. "That was bad enough. But it's over now. The End. I have no wish to discuss it with you and no wish to further any kind of relationship with him."

I turned away from her. The road was empty. It would be a good time to cross. It was painful enough to think about Jacob. It brought back the longing and the anger and the confusion which all tugged at my heartstrings, tangling them into a thick knot of pain. I must be strong like Carlisle.

I took a breath and headed away from her, but she followed avidly behind like a dog on a tight lead, never letting more than a foot of air between us as she strode.

"The end? The end of what?"

"Don't you get it Leah? He can't just go around killing people and expect me to be fine with it. There's a line in this mad little cocoon we live in, and he's done plenty, believe me. I turn a blind eye to all the wanderers he goes for, but Nahuel? Really? Friends. Family. They're the line, and he just ripped it apart."

"Even for self-defence?"

Good one Leah. Like I hadn't seen that one coming.

"Yeah, whatever. I'm sick of it all, and most of all I'm sick of him hurting me. So enough. Once and for all, enough. I never want to see him again." Even as I said it, I knew the words weren't true. I wanted him to explain himself. I wanted him to be sorry and for things to go back to normal but how could it. It is not what Carlisle would do. His example with Sofia proved how moral he was, and how I shouldn't just overlook this, even if it was just one death not four. If I made excuses for Jacob now, I'd always be making them.

Leah sucked in her breath. "So that's it?"

I nodded into the trees. From the corner of my eye I saw confusion sweep across her face.

"Come on Leah, it's not like you thought it could ever work?"

She squirmed slightly, twisting her lips.

"So now it's official, and when you see him you can tell him that. Who were we kidding; a vampire and a werewolf, I mean come on..."

She paused. "So you can turn your emotions off just like that?"

"I can when he murders my friends," I said.

"And that's what I don't get. Why would he do that? Why would he destroy your Latin friend?"

I shuddered. Being destroyed made it sound so much worse. "Oh, I don't know, jealousy? Anger? Upset? Immaturity? Name any one you want. He couldn't bear that there was another half-blood like me. It didn't matter that we had made up at prom. We sorted everything out and put it behind us. And then Nahuel punched him. I get it, he just couldn't help himself. He just had to retaliate." I thought back to the kiss in my high school gym. It had sparked a desire in me that I never knew existed. How quickly those feelings of love or lust or whatever it was had spiraled into such hate and animosity. Leah had gone quiet, clearly chewing over my last sentence with some thought.

"You made up at the prom? So it worked…"

"Yeah." Whatever it was she was talking about.

"...but then he killed the vampire anyway?" Her eyebrows knotted together as her gaze fell to the floor. "It just doesn't stack up, Carlie. I know Jacob, I know him like a brother, and I also know how badly he wanted to sort things out with you. He loves you." She glowered at me with a loaded expression. "And if, as you say, you made up, then the imprinting would still bind you both and he would never have gone after Nahuel, never."

I picked at the bark on a nearby trunk; anything so not to look at her. "I don't know, Leah. I don't understand imprinting, I'm not one of you. But the damage has been done. No matter what possessed him to do it in the first place, his actions outweigh any bind that the two of us may have. Imagine if it was me he was angry with and he lashed out like that." She shook her head profusely. I flicked the charcoaled birch into the air and started to walk away from her.

"Why don't you just ask him yourself?" I said over my shoulder. "In fact." I spun around. "Why don't you know all this already, Leah? Surely it was there in his thoughts, after all its not every day you kill a half-blood." I emphasized the last words sourly and then swung round to cross the road.

She didn't advance after me but called out, "because he's gone, Carlie. He's just disappeared."

It's one thing to lose someone, a human. They drive off, turn off their cell, and bingo, they've actually vanished off the radar. But to lose a wolf was something else. Not only was Jacob their alpha, their leader, he was also there in their thoughts. It was impossible to keep secrets between them. It was impossible to disappear.

Unless you were dead.

"His thoughts?" I asked, although I already knew the answer.

"Nothing," she replied. "We've been looking for him round the clock. The pack, geez, the whole tribe have been out there looking. That's why I was up near your place. I was desperate. I thought, despite everything, he could be with you." I felt the air escape me but didn't dare look back, trying to hide my concern. "I'm starting to think he's not there to be found," she added quietly.

I didn't want to feel this way. Jacob had always been more than able to look after himself.

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" I snapped.

"You wanted nothing to do with him, remember. You never wanted to see him again, and your family were pretty much in agreement over that one."

But he'd disappeared. That was not like Jake. If he was sulking, I imagined he would do it at the Res.

"Where was he seen last?"

"At your place, the day they found the body," she said, in barely an audible whisper.

I flicked around to where Leah stood amongst the red cedars. "I saw him at the house. He was down on the driveway. I presumed he went back to La Push. Where else is there to go?"

"Well he never returned," she said, "and I've not heard him in his wolf form since." Her eyes started pooling with tears and she looked up at the sky, her face taut. "We managed to trace his scent from your place to Berty's diner on Jefferson. The waitress didn't think he was there very long as someone came for him."

"What do you mean?" I said. "Who?"

"She couldn't remember, she was just surprised he left a full mug of coffee on the table. She also said he asked for a pen and paper. So while we were there we hunted around the place and this is what we found." She unfolded a crumpled piece of paper in her hands and held it out for me.

Dear Carlie,

If you get this, he has already found me

and it is probably too late. You need to...

It stopped mid-sentence leaving three quarters of the page blank.

"I don't understand," I said. "Why did he not finish it? What did he want me to do?" My voice rose louder and Leah looked perplexed. "Why did you not think to bring this to me earlier?"

She glared at me. "Well I'm bringing it to you now."

I studied it again. "And who is he that Jake is referring to? Is that the person that met him in the diner?"

"Isn't it obvious?"

"No, should it be?"

She sighed with the kind of reluctance I had grown so accustomed to; half anger and half sheer frustration.

"It has to be Demetri, of course," she said.

I froze.

"What? Demetri from the Volturi?"

She nodded.

"But that's ridiculous," I said. "Why would you think of him? What reason could he possibly have to target Jacob?"

"Because he and Nahuel were fighting against Jacob in the forest." She looked at me like I was stupid. "Did he not tell you this?"

Did he tell me anything?

"I never let him explain," I whispered, taking a step back. "But Nahuel hated the Volturi, he hated Demetri. He would never have fought alongside him."

"Unless Nahuel saw Jake as the greater threat," she said. "They're both vampires Carlie. That counts for a lot."

"No." I shrunk back further into the forest. "He wouldn't of..." I paused for long enough for a car to pass by. "You're saying that Demetri and Nahuel somehow hooked up and went after Jacob together?"

"I'm not saying that. I don't know who started the fight."

I shook my head. The whole thing didn't stack up. "It's still not possible. We would know if Demetri was in Forks, Alice would have foreseen it."

"I'm not lying," she snapped, with a faint growl between her teeth. "Demetri was there, I saw him."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Okay, so even if he was there, there's no reason for him to launch on Jake or Nahuel."

"So you think it was all Jacob's fault?"

"No, but I didn't know there was a third person in the fight," I screeched back. "How I reacted before was the logical conclusion to seeing his venom scars and a dead vampire clawed to pieces and scattered over a field like manure..."

"Demetri nearly killed Jacob," she said. "If as you say he hated Nahuel or Nahuel hated him or whatever, then there's no reason why Demetri couldn't have killed him too. Jacob phased so late, we only just got there in time." Her gaze fell back in time to the events of last week. "Something is so wrong about this."

"Leah, you must come back to the house with me," I said, marching towards her. She flinched backwards, quite unprepared for my sudden speed.

"But the others were quite insistent about us visiting, Carlie. They won't give me a chance to explain. If Jasper even sees me—."

"He won't see you, he's not even here. Come on, we have no time to lose."

I dragged her arm and reluctantly she followed in the direction of the house, jumping the road then the river before padding through the foliage. After several minutes, we reached the familiar trees that laced the grounds, but it wasn't until the white rendered corner of the roof protruded into the sky that Leah slowed, hanging back in the undergrowth. Between warped branches, figures moved in the lounge.

"It's alright Leah, they need to hear this," I said. I rocked my head in the direction of the dwelling. "Lets go."

But she didn't advance, looking past me and into the great house. "Who's with them?" She said, shrinking further back into the undergrowth.

"Oh, it'll be Ben, he's staying with us." I pushed my hand out for hers but she didn't accept.

"Another strange vampire?" She said.

"No, he's not a vampire. He doesn't know anything, well not really. Look it's a long story for another time."

She looked at me then squinted back at the house in confusion.

"Well, that guy is not a Cullen, and he is definitely no human. It almost looks like..."

I spun around focusing straight in on the hallway. There was a stranger indeed although he was partially obscured from my vision by the outer wall. I pushed Leah slightly for a better view. Through the small round window, I could make out a lean frame and the edge of a youthful but ashen white face. Sandy hair fell in waves around it. In front of him, was the lithe body of Esme; she was closest but it was Carlisle who spoke.

"Demetri, what a surprise it is to see you here, my friend," he said, with neither a smile nor a frown.