"This piece will form the base," he said and pointed to a plank lying on the working table. "We need to shorten it and smooth the surface."
Maddie nodded her head. She had absolutely no idea how this pile of wood on the ground could ever turn into a book shelf, but she had faith in Eleazar.
She and the dark-haired man were currently standing in the garage, surrounded by wooden boards, tools and a huge circular saw.
"If you were human I'd tell you to be careful as to not get yourself hurt, but you are not, so: Please don't damage my saw. Make sure the blade does not touch your skin. You won't lose a finger, but I will lose my saw and the next hardware store is hours away."
She just gave him a look. "I'm careful, don't worry," was her sweet reply, that was accompanied by a smile.
Building something was indeed exciting. She liked working with her hands, as long as it wasn't cars or gardening. Rose was obsessed with working on engines, tires and fan belts, but Maddie was not. And while Esme enjoyed planting flowers, pulling weeds and trimming hedges, Maddie couldn't think of anything more boring than that.
Building a new book shelf for her room was a new experience and she was kind of excited about the task. Eleazar liked working with wood, and Maddie was starting to see why. You could take your time, actually needed to, and you could create something that's one of a kind. Just the way you pictured it to look like. There were so many types of wood you could choose from, different colours of paint, different styles.
"What about legs?" she asked, looking up at him and scratching her nose.
"We can add legs if you want," he replied and nodded his head. "We can attach them once the shelf is finished. Do you want to paint it?"
"I don't know yet... depends on how much work painting is."
"Lazy today, are you?" he asked and looked at her with a raised eyebrow. It seemed to amuse him.
She made a face. "I just hate putting work and effort into something, and then it ends up looking like a pile of trash."
He knew exactly what she was talking about. "I like the colour of the wood and the grain, it would be a waste to cover it up, don't you think?"
"Hm-hm."
"We could apply a layer of transparent varnish once we are finished." It was very hard to muck that up.
"Yeah, that'd look good, I think."
"You never built anything before, did you?"
With her elbows on the table, she leaned forward and let her fingertips run over the blade of the circular saw. It surprised her that this could cut a person in half, as it felt so... dull. But then again, anything felt dull to them. "No, I usually watch TV and play games."
Eleazar carefully moved her hand away from his precious tool to make sure she wouldn't break it. "Every single day? That doesn't sound like fun. Don't you want to spend your time doing something more productive?"
"There is still time for that... I don't want to hurry life because then it would grow boring. Just imagine you have tried everything and seen every single place on this planet... what then?" she looked up at him, then moved her fingers closer to the saw again.
He grabbed her hand and placed it back onto the table top, patting it gently. "Then you start all over again, of course. The world changes all the time."
"The world might, but people don't." There was a hint of bitterness in her tone, but Eleazar didn't think much of it.
"Yes, people change too, in a way. It comes with time, with technology, possibilities."
"But not all change."
"Are you talking about us?" he queried, his eyebrows drawn together for a moment. "We are frozen in a way, yes, but that doesn't mean we don't change. Or that we can't change, as I presume you're asking."
She pushed herself up into a standing position again, then casually shrugged her shoulders. "I didn't presume anything, just making conversation here."
No matter her nonchalance, the elder felt like they were heading in a direction that might give them some answers. Answers as to why she wouldn't want to return to her parents, or just why she was having such an uneven temper lately. "Who do you think should change?"
She looked him in the eyes, then quickly averted her gaze. "Nobody, everything's fine."
"Maddie, please. Something's on your mind, what is it?" He placed a hand on her shoulder in encouragement and bent down a little to be on her eye level.
It made her uncomfortable, and she shrugged his hand off, then took a step back to be out of his reach and hugged herself. "Nothing, it's fine. Would you drop it already?"
"I'm just trying to help you."
Her temper flared right that moment, as the memory of what Jasper had told her rushed to the forefront of her mind. They had helped her, but only in a way Carlisle approved of. "Oh, I know your help, and trust me, I don't want it! I don't want anyone's help!"
Her eyes had turned dark, and she was breathing heavily. Eleazar figured that talking to her in a calm manner would be the best course of action now, even though he felt that raising his voice a little and telling her to quit it or else would end her tantrum a lot quicker.
"There is absolutely no need for yelling, girl. Calm yourself."
She threw her hands in the air. "Then stop asking me stupid questions! Why is everybody so determined to make my life suck, huh?!"
He sucked in a breath, but then decided against addressing her outburst. "Who is doing something like that, Maddie? Talk to me. What happened back home?"
"That place is not my home!" Her hands were balled up into fists and she seemed to be so out of her mind, that Eleazar feared what she'd do next. He couldn't endure this yelling and disrespect any longer, and so he truly hoped she'd just stop.
"But something must have happened there, am I right?"
"Argh, stop with the stupid questions! Just shut up!"
Now matter how calm and collected he always was, no matter his patience or his sympathy for the girl right now, he was done listening to her shouting. "Madeline, I know you're upset, but you don't yell at me, ever."
She squinted her eyes at him, then turned around and grabbed the handle of the door that would lead to the kitchen. Currently she was too upset to control her strength, and instead of just gently pressing the handle down to open the door, she ripped the entire thing right out of the wood.
"You did not just break the door," he stated in disbelief as she looked at him over her shoulder.
She clenched her teeth for a second, then threw the handle at him and left the garage with quick strides.
"Madeline, stop! Come back right now, we are not done here!"
"Maybe you aren't, but I sure as hell am!" she shot back.
He hurried after her, seized her by the upper arm as he caught up with her in the kitchen, and yanked her around to face him.
"What has gotten into you?"
She glowered at him, then growled. "Let go of me, you a-"
Carmen appeared by the door to the living room, effectively cutting off Maddie's outburst with her unexpected presence. It seemed to help her snap out of her frenzy.
The girl wrenched her arm free from his grip and quickly vanished from the room by running across the kitchen and ascending the stairs to her room. They could hear her bang the door shut, then a noise followed that sounded suspiciously like a key being turned in the keyhole.
"I don't believe it," he uttered, his eyes big with shock as he turned towards his mate.
"El-" Carmen started to say, but her husband interrupted her. "That stops right now."
"Hey, wait," she hurried over to him just as he was on his way to the stairs, and she placed a hand on his chest to stop him. "Let her calm down."
"And then what?"
"Come," she said softly and took his hand in hers, "let's talk about it."
Together they headed for the living room, where the rest of the family was seated, all looking less than happy about what they had just been forced to listen to.
"This is getting out of hand, Tanya," Eleazar said as he sat down on the couch opposite from her. Seeing the girl so upset stressed him immensely, as he truly did not know how to help her. She knew she could talk to all of them and they'd do their very best to help her. But she would never say a word. And now, instead of letting them help her through this hard time, she had decided that breaking things was her new favourite way of dealing with her problems.
They had no clue as to what happened, could only guess what might have upset her so. But did they come to the right conclusions? Was it something that went way back that she had kept in for so long that it had become just too much to bear for her?
There were endless possibilities, and they would only know for sure what it was if she talked about it.
Kate sighed and threw her magazine onto the coffee table before she leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs. "Maybe we should invite Carlisle and Esme."
"No!" Tanya exclaimed and shook her head. "She never picks up when they call, so I think it's save to say that she truly does not want to talk to them, much less be in the same room as them."
"And keeping this up is going to help her how? She isn't talking to them, she's not talking to us."
"Just give her some more time maybe?" Tanya offered, but wasn't convinced herself. It was gradually getting worse.
Eleazar rubbed a hand over his face. "We have given her so much time and she had plenty of opportunities to tell us what's going on."
A sigh came from Kate. "Then just leave her be." She figured that if they only waited it out, eventually Maddie would come to them and ask for help.
Tanya distorted her face and slowly shook her head. "She's going to snap again." The girl was constantly on edge, and when she wasn't it didn't take long until she was.
"I know, but sooner or later she'll see that she needs to open up," Kate offered.
Eleazar straightened his back and crossed his arms over his chest. "Sooner or later I'm going to tan her hide if she continues to break things or take her frustration out on us."
"That's going to make it worse, dear," Carmen took a seat on the armrest of the sofa her mate was sitting on and placed a gentle hand on his forearm.
"I doubt that it can get any worse than it is now. She wants to deal with her problems on her own, fine, but we and this house are not her punching ball."
"Eleazar, please."
He scooted around a little to face his wife. "Do you know what she's always so afraid of? Changes. So, maybe by coddling her and enduring her tantrums without properly responding to them, we are scaring her even more."
Tanya spoke up. "That's an interesting perspective."
"Yes. So, if she continues to act up, I will hold her accountable, like I have done so many times before. It's not new to her, she knows what to expect."
Carmen wasn't agreeing. "Still, I don't feel comfortable with this idea."
"It's not an idea, I just refuse to continue watching her cause havoc and will go back to treating her like I always have. Part of growing up is learning to deal with your problems and emotions without harming others."
"What if she doesn't know how to express herself? I think she feels trapped with her inner turmoil and the latest changes in her life."
"Like what, moving?" It was the first time that Irina spoke. She was engulfed in a book and didn't even look up from the pages. This entire crisis meeting was slowly but surely getting on her nerves.
"Yes, it's new to her."
She lowered the book and looked at her strawberry-blonde sister. "New doesn't mean bad, and acting up is not going to get her what she wants. Apparently someone failed to teach her that...," she mumbled the last part with an eye-roll.
"I believe right now she doesn't even know what she wants."
And they were still going round in circles instead of just doing the obvious. Irina got up from her armchair. "Okay, how about we stop wrecking our brains for the cause of her behaviour and just ask?"
"We tried that," Tanya replied and shrugged her shoulders. "It didn't work."
"Not her, ask the other party involved."
Tanya looked confused. "You mean Carlisle and Esme?"
All Irina did was nod, before she took her previous seat and grabbed her book. Maybe they considered asking the rest of the family about why the girl was so irritable as a betrayal of trust or something the like, but they had truly reached a point where it did not matter anymore. The little brat had all the chances, and now it was time for them to take action or send her back.
Carmen wasn't sure if this idea would be of any help. "What if they don't know what's going on? The first few days they kept on calling, like they had no idea she was mad at them." She was concerned that calling them might make everything worse. They would want to come and pick her up as she was causing so much destruction, but the girl came here with the intention of putting as much distance as possible between herself and them.
"She isn't mad… well, not exclusively."
Carmen frowned at Tanya. "What do you mean?"
"She's afraid of going back, and it's not about the new town."
"Afraid of them? Her parents? That can't be. I thought she's angry about the move."
"She had a complete meltdown on our drive here, asked me to promise her we wouldn't sent her back. This was fear, not just anger about the move."
That little info made Eleazar sit up. "She did the same thing with me when I took her to the shed. The thought of having to go back terrifies her. I figured it was because of the new situation, but she was genuinely scared of someone taking her and bringing her back."
"So, what shall we do?"
"She's not going to tell us, is she?"
"I highly doubt she will suddenly open up and tell you what's going on...," Irina muttered and turned a page.
Kate looked pensive for a moment, before she turned to face her sister and said, "You know, I was wondering… when she called you, it was urgent. You had to immediately jump into the car to pick her up. Is it just that staying in this house was becoming so unbearable that she had reached a point where she truly couldn't take it anymore, or did something different happen on that specific day?"
"I'm not sure, but the way she was acting, the exhaustion and how she looked, something had happened on that day. Rose and Emmett seemed oblivious, however."
"Maybe you should start with Carlisle then." Irina, helpful as ever.
"Okay, let's try it."
Tanya called the Cullens' on the landline, and after the third ring, Esme picked up.
"Hello?"
"Hey Esme, it's me, Tanya. Is Carlisle around?"
"No, he's at work. What's going on? Is Maddie okay?"
"Yeah, about that...," she trailed off and leaned with her hip against the armchair Irina was currently occupying.
Her sister wrenched the phone from her hand, said "Your child's a mess," and handed it back to Tanya.
Not helpful.
Panic was rising in the brunette, and it was clearly audible through the phone. "Can I talk to her? Do you want me to pick her up?"
"No, and no." Tanya replied, and slapped Irina's upper arm with the back of her hand while glaring at her. "Actually, we have a few questions that maybe you can help us with."
"Of course."
"What exactly happened last week? The day she left?"
"Oh, that was not pleasant. Jasper came home from a hunt and was close to harming Maddie. Apparently she had made him unable to smell humans after he almost attacked Bella, so he wouldn't beat himself up over having lost control over his bloodlust. She was just trying to burst his confidence and make sure we wouldn't have to move so suddenly again. Her influence wore off and when he went on a hunt with Alice and Em, he smelled a hiker and was completely overwhelmed. Thank God they were able to restrain him."
"Oh, wow, she didn't mention any of it."
"She didn't?" Esme sounded confused as to how her daughter could forget to share these details about that horrible day with them. "He was furious and thought she had made him attack a human, but with Rose's help we could quickly defuse the situation."
"And that's all?"
"Not really… well, Jasper asked to deal with her himself as she had wronged him-"
Tanya gasped. "Wronged him? To me it sounds like she had truly good intentions and was trying to help him!"
"Yes, exactly, but Carlisle figured as the two never really got along maybe letting Jasper to talk her, one on one, might be beneficial. And so we let them go for a walk to talk things through."
"How did Maddie react?"
"She begged us not to leave her alone with him, she was scared."
"Scared of a talk?"
"Unfortunately, we left out a couple of details… like that this talk was not meant as a punishment and that he wasn't allowed to lay a hand on her."
Tanya felt like she just got punched in the stomach. That was cruel. They truly let her think that he, as livid as he had been, was allowed to deal with her any way he pleased and they would just hand her over to him without monitoring the situation and being able to intervene if something turned dark or got dangerous.
"So you were playing mind games with her."
Tanya could hear Esme take a deep breath. She was upsetting her, she knew that she was, but this was something they had done. No need to sugarcoat it.
"That was never our intention."
Tanya held a hand to her forehead and turned around. She was getting agitated, and not just a little. "I mean, you scared the hell out of your daughter, because you honestly thought she might benefit from it… really? Why would you do that? That's a horrible idea!"
Esme's voice sounded subdued now. "Carlisle was convinced it's for the best, but I had doubts. When they came back after a while it looked like the talk had really done them good, they were fine."
"And that's all that happened?"
Esme cleared her throat. Talking about this made her uncomfortable, as she was forced to relive that day in her mind. It had destroyed her family a bit more, and the thought about what might happen next scared her. "No. Maddie took a shower and when she came back downstairs, she overheard Carlisle and Jasper talking. I don't know what she heard, but she ran away after that. When I came upstairs because of the racket coming from the office, Carlisle was just about to whip Jasper. Apparently he had challenged him."
"No way." What in the world has suddenly gotten into these people?!
"I, too, couldn't believe it. Jasper then left to find Maddie, as it had been something he said that chased her away."
"Anything else that happened?"
"They came back, Maddie looked more at ease around her brother, but she was awfully cold towards us. She packed her bag and left the house when she heard Em's car outside."
"Any idea what they talked about?"
"He apologised for what she had overheard."
"Yes, but what did he say?"
Esme hesitated, realising that she herself didn't know just what it was he had said. It had panicked her and caused her to flee from the house... so it must have been really bad. "I don't know, something that wasn't meant for her ears. Something that upset her enough to make her dart from the house."
"When you say she was cold towards you… was she angry or scared?"
Esme thought about it for a moment, trying to find the right words to describe her daughter's behaviour the best she could. "She was nervous… and angry. But she didn't seem scared."
Tanya and Eleazar were convinced that Maddie was scared of going back because of Carlisle and Esme… but where did this fear come from?
"That's all that happened on that day?"
The woman at the other end of the phone sniffled. "I don't know how I could let this happen... The first time they came back, she was angry with me for not telling her that Jasper was only allowed to talk to her and no more. And she was even more angry with Carlisle as it had been his idea. She had been so, so scared her brother would hurt her. My poor girl..."
While Tanya didn't want to cut Esme off, especially since she was so upset now, she had to tend to more urgent matters now. "Hm… hey, Esme? Give me a call if you remember anything else, okay?"
"Sure," Esme replied and snuffled again, "anything to help. Can I talk to her maybe?"
"She locked her door, I don't think she's up for it now. Maybe later."
"Please take good care of my child, please."
"Of course, don't worry."
They hung up and Tanya put the phone back onto the docking station before she turned around while releasing a long breath. She ran a hand through her hair and looked in between her family.
"Wow…," Kate said, "I could only make out half of it, but it sounded bad."
"I understand Maddie's anger now… but the raw fear when she was in the car with me? This… desperation? I don't know, this doesn't add up."
"Maybe Esme left something out."
"No, she's worried, she told me what she knew, admitted that she made a mistake. I don't think she's keeping something from us as all we are trying to do is help her kid."
Eleazar leaned forward in his seat. "Who else is involved?"
"Carlisle and Jasper," Tanya said and bit her lip, trying to decide who she should call next.
He nodded while he seemed to be deep in thought. Eventually he lifted his gaze and looked in between the women. "All right, let's see what else we can find out."
Thank you for reading and reviewing guys! It's the first time in forever that I'm not working between Christmas and New Year, so hopefully I can finish this story soon! Thx again! :-)