Chapter song- Moana by G-Eazy
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"You lost her?" Carlisle thinly veiled his rage as concern while Emmett and Esme looked perfectly distraught in front of the family. Poor Esme had been crying from distress until Rosalie had finally soothed her enough to speak.
"I-I was just trying to give them privacy." She stared at her feet as Emmett towered protectively over her.
He looked at Carlisle with an uncharacteristically straight expression. "Didn't really seem right to eavesdrop." He shrugged his massive shoulders in a hopeless gesture.
Edward primly lifted his eyebrows. "She's a newborn," he said patronizingly slow, "it is clearly vital you watch over her when new elements are introduced to her."
"Oh can it, Eddie, it's not like you were helping look after her." Rose snapped back promptly. Her blonde hair glinted as she flipped it in agitation. "It can't possibly be that hard to track down one girl. All of us need to calm down; it's hardly like she's helpless."
Esme moaned and then put her head in her hands. "Lord, I hope she sticks to her diet. If it's someone she knows..."
"It'll be all right, Esme." The blonde beauty rubbed her back. "Someone needs to call Jasper and make sure that he's got eyes on Mary."
"Oh for the love of-" Carlisle's mask of calm broke completely as the realization of possibly both Swan sisters disappearing hit. A tic in his face betrayed his agitation as Edward sagged against the wall and stared at the ceiling with black, dead eyes.
Emmett was already on the phone. It rang obnoxiously four times before going to voicemail. "Huh, he didn't answer."
"We could all hear it, you imbecile." Edward hissed.
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Sam carried the despondent girl to the office building that housed many, if not all, of the administrative tasks of LaPush, kicking open the door with an impatient foot before apathetically dropping his load onto the carpeted floor once he reached the appropriate conference room.
Leah landed on her knees, dehydrated from a day on the forest floor and thoroughly miserable.
The Council members, her father included, stared at her with disappointment tattooed on their faces.
"Explain," Chief Black's face was thunderous. "why Sam has reported you to the Tribal Council for high treason."
Funny that they believe him straight away. Leah stared at them with desolate eyes, not really giving a single fuck about what was happening since the worst possible punishment had already been meted out; she had rejected her.
Big fingers gripped her face and Sam forced her to look up at him. "Tell them, Leah." His huge body began to shake as if he was about to go wolf any second. "You abused your position of acting alpha by ordering me to stay silent, but you're so damn weak right now," he lifted her up off her knees by her face. "that I finally broke it."
Leah just kept staring past him indifferently.
"Hands off my daughter, Uley." Harry Clearwater spoke quietly, his fury a silent thing.
Sam released her, his body heaving from the effort of not shifting. With noticeable effort, he straightened and addressed the Council. "Our worst fears have come to pass; Bella Swan is a newborn vampire and our treaty with the Cold Ones is null and void." He stopped speaking long enough for gasps to envelope the room. "Leah alpha-ordered me to remain silent and aided in their plot to steal a human life, and worse yet, I smelled vampire stench past our borders today."
Low murmurs, angry and numerous, rang around the room. Harry Clearwater looked like he was having a small heart-attack while Old Quil was bright red in the face. Billy Black rolled his wheelchair directly in front of the she-wolf to look down on her still-kneeling body.
"I will only give you this last chance to explain yourself, Leah." He spoke quietly.
Leah kept stoically silent, too far gone to even really hear her Chief.
Billy sighed and closed his eyes wearily. "The treaty has been broken by the very woman entrusted to Protect us and all of mankind from the threat of the Cold Ones." He stopped speaking for a moment as though it pained him too much to continue. Sam was practically bouncing on his feet in unbidden excitement. "I, Chief William Black, hereby strip Leah Clearwater of her tribal rights; she is banned from this land and its people for the rest of her days."
At this decree, murmurs overtook the room, many of the Council members looking sated in their indignity.
"No." Harry whispered, his face now ashen-white and petrified. "Billy, you can't do this!" His voice cracked on the last syllable; Old Quill had the grace to look slightly guilty.
Billy spared a sympathetic yet implacable glance at his friend. "I am Chief and this is just."
Harry gathered his head in his hands in despair as he continued to look unnaturally ill.
A growl suddenly split through the air and all heads turned way to the male shifter. He was pale. "I didn't smell it." He managed to say before the vibe in the room became too tense and thick with terror. Sam collapsed to his knees beside Leah, who still seemed impervious to any outside stimuli. "Can't shift." He rasped out to the old men, all of whom looked equally as helpless as himself.
The heavy oak door then flew off its hinges, obliterating the opposite wall and exposing the building's foundation and scarcely missing the conference table. All of the men flinched from the explosion of motion, but seemed unable to move from their spots.
"Well I say, Chief Black, your sense of justice isn't too far from good ol' Texas hospitality." A deep Texan twang taunted as a tall, lean man stepped into the room. Black eyes swallowed his face and twisted it to appear harsh. "Though Texans tend to turn that brand of cruelty on strangers rather than children that they watched grow up. With that spirit in mind, what sort of hospitality should I dish out to you?" Razor sharp claws shot out of his hands as he leaned against the shattered doorway casually.
Billy Black managed a loud gulp while Sam managed to force himself up and stumble a few measly steps towards the invading vampire. But it was to no avail.
Jasper cheerfully cracked him across the face with an open palm, sending the werewolf flying back into the destroyed wall. Sam didn't get up again. "Excommunicating one of your own for not enforcing borders you can't even really protect seems a bit hypercritical. I'm far from the most powerful monster out there." As he talked, he gathered the despondent Leah into his arms. "Now if y'all will excuse us, we've got some females to track down. Also, y'all might want to tend to your own, he's been having a heart-attack since before I busted in due to that awful ultimatum you've given him."
The fear released a select few of the Council and they all scrambled around Harry, who was sweating profusely and clutching his chest.
Leah stirred in Jasper's arms as the tall man turned his back on the Council and began to stroll out casually. "Dad." She peeked over Jasper's arm with wide eyes. But the rejected imprint swamped the stray emotion in a bout of punishment that once again had her eyes glossing over.
It sent the empath hissing through his teeth as he managed a burst of speed that left LaPush in a blur. "C'mon, fight it." He snarled as he sat her on the forest floor where he'd last found Bella's scent. The ocean crashed below them. "I need to know where those two went off to and why."
The she-wolf looked down at the scent trail and traced it slowly. Everything still hurt and she needed water.
Jasper sighed and grabbed the girl's face gently to make her meet his eyes, "Leah, Bella needs you; what'll happen if she accidentally kills her sister?"
It was as though a bucket of water had been thrown on her. "Bella... in trouble?" Her voice came out hoarse as sentient intelligence finally seemed to gain its hold on her.
The vampire nodded. "Tell me everything you remember before Bella plunged into the water away from you."
"We went to..." She closed her eyes in concentration. "your family's mansion to see Mary... Knew she was with you so I thought it'd be okay. Bella ran off before ever getting inside the house."
Jasper's eyebrows drew together in confusion.
"She wanted to sneak," Leah explained. "I thought she was just waiting for the coast to be clear, but she froze on the porch for a long time before taking off."
The she-wolf stood up then, looking in surprise at her surroundings as if it was the first time she was seeing them. "What now?"
"I'm going after them; you're free to join." Jasper was already on his phone. "From what you told me, Bella took Mary after hearing something that scared her."
She blew out a breath. Past the irrational panic of the imprint bond, she could acknowledge that Bella had looked terrified as she ran. Bella didn't trust her yet so it only made sense why she had fled from her too.
Lord, but how much her life had become utterly fucked up within 24 hours was incredible.
There were only a few things she had to take care of, however. "Go on ahead, Jasper. I'll follow after probably after an hour." She tapped her nose to let him know that she'd track him.
The tall man nodded. "I'll still be in town. Gonna do some investigating to confirm a few things. We are just going to have to hope that Bella doesn't slip in the meantime." Ice cold words, yet the set of his jaw betrayed what the decision was costing him.
On that dark note, Jasper was gone. Which left Leah standing on her homeland. A place that she could never again return to. She stared at the ocean's crashing waves and let a single tear escape before she took off in the direction of Forks Hospital.
She owed her family one last farewell.
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Bella piled several goods in the car, slamming it shut as I watched. "Did you steal all of that?" Curiosity overtook me as I noticed that some pieces of clothing still had tags on them, with a bright pink shirt even having a plastic security clip still hanging off of its sleeve.
"Yeah, well we don't really have much of an option right now, with me wanting to eat everybody I see." She muttered, the damn mask muffling her words even further, "Had to hit the store before it opened." The Sun had finally come down again over the motel, and we were getting the hell out of dodge ASAP.
"You're a zombie?" I teased. She'd been in a better mood since I'd woken up, and had even been letting me take stabs at why my deceased sister had kidnapped me.
She looked at me and actually laughed. It came out a bit rusty. "That's actually the closest you've gotten so far. I think I like it when your gift is disabled."
"My gift?" I asked. She hadn't really told me much about myself before the 'accident', but she had told me that I hadn't changed all that much.
She laughed again and ruffled my hair, causing a strange lump in my throat to form. "Trust me, you'd probably be worrying yourself to death if that aspect of yourself worked right now. I think that's why you forgot everything; you're protecting yourself."
She then gently shoved me into the backseat and tossed me a bag of candy called 'Twizzlers'. I found myself staring at the strange red candy, peeling it apart with my hands and examining it. The car took off in an ominous lurch.
Just as I was experiencing the sugary awesomeness, Bella spoke over the speakers. "How great does Alaska sound?"
I swallowed nervously, thinking about a recent fantasy of sunbathing on the beach that I'd had. Wasn't Alaska cold?
"Do we have to?" I whined.
Static over the speaker as Bella laughed again. "Complaint heard. Upper Canada it is then!"
As we sped off into further and further into the unknown, a question occurred to me: How did a deceased teenager get passports to go to Canada?
