Chapter 4: first
In the airport bathroom Leah changes out of her sundress into a pair of jeans and copper leather jacket. She dumps her old clothes into the garbage and makes her way to the rental car center. The young man at the counter only has dismal pickings left.
"Sorry, ma'am. We only have a Jeep or a Volvo available this afternoon," he says. Neither of the vehicles look conspicuous in the least.
Leah sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. "Give me the stupid Volvo."
After an hour's drive Leah pulls her rental in front of a modest sized home in a quiet, suburban neighborhood. All of the houses look like clones of each other, equally spaced out with perfectly trimmed lawns and shrubbery. The siding of this particular house is a periwinkle blue, and the window panels are a contrasting canary yellow. It's an eyesore, and it makes Leah want to gag.
She yanks the keys from the ignition and steps out of the vehicle, pausing in front of the mailbox. The name 'Wolfe' is etched on the side. Curious, she opens the mailbox and skims through the envelopes stacked inside. They're primarily addressed to a 'Jacob Wolfe' or 'Eric Yorkie' of 342 Deer Street in Neah Bay.
Of all the aliases, he had to choose that one?
Leah snorts, tossing the envelopes on the ground. She steps around the children's toys that litter the lawn until she makes it to the porch, and rings the doorbell.
"Coming!" A deep voice calls out. The door opens. "Babe, since when are you home this early-"
Leah only allows Quil half a second to register who he opened the door to before her fist slams in his face with a satisfying crunch. She shakes out her hand with a grimace and watches with a sick fascination as the skin of her split knuckles seal back together.
Quil stumbles into a coffee table in the living room with a snarl. The glass shatters and the wood buckles beneath his weight. He stands, shaking the disorientation away from his gaze, and charges toward Leah like a bear as blue begins to bleed into his brown irises.
As he approaches Leah feints left, and, like the gullible fighter he's always been, Quil follows her motions. She dodges to the right when he stoops down to grab her and angles her leg to kick him in the groin. He lets out a pathetic shout and doubles over. Leah takes the opportunity to leap onto his broad back and hook her arms around his neck in a chokehold.
Quil's meaty hands claw and punch at her arms, but her hold is steadfast. He chokes and sputters until he's bright red in the face and falls forward. His hand frantically reaches out, grasping a pokerstick from the fireplace and whacking Leah in the forehead with it.
Leah drops off of Quil's back from the unexpected blow and blinks the stars out of her eyes. She brings her forearms up to block his continued hammering strikes. It rips at the sleeves of her leather jacket until she can feel the hits directly against her skin. She catches the pokerstick mid-strike when Quil changes the angle to stab her with it instead, and their arms violently shake in a match of strength.
It makes Leah huff. He hasn't changed one bit.
Throughout their match, Leah knew Quil wouldn't phase. Some idiotic part of him still balks at having an "unfair advantage" over Leah by fighting in his wolf form, a principle he followed since they first met and it became known that she would never turn into a werewolf like everyone else. He must not realize how Leah has changed, partly because of his infamously poor observation skills and general lack of thinking before charging headfirst. He was in for a surprise.
The pokerstick snaps in half under the pressure of their strength and they both jump away from each other. With matching sneers on their faces, they both readjust their grips on their severed halves of the pokerstick and slowly circle each other.
A school bus pulls to a stop in front of the house, and Quil hesitates. His eyes dart nervously between the window and the makeshift weapon in Leah's hand. Leah follows his gaze.
The bus doors open, and a tiny girl with pigtails tied in frilly pink bows and a matching dress hops out. She skips across the lawn with a smile on her face, showing off several blank spaces where she's missing baby teeth. The front door opens, and the girl calls out,
"Daddy, I'm home!"
Leah and Quil are quick to straighten up when the girl fully walks through the door, and they hide the pokersticks behind their backs.
"H-Hey Claire Bear," Quil pants with a quivering smile. "How was school?"
Claire stares in quiet shock at the carnage that is now the living room and the tousled appearance of the two adults in front of her.
"Daddy…" she says in a trembling voice. Her eyes lock on Leah's as she takes a hesitant step forward. "What happened to the living room?"
"You can't come in here, Claire," Quil says hastily. He gestures at the floor. "There's, uh, there's glass everywhere, see? You don't want to get cut."
Claire won't take her eyes off Leah, who returns her stare with unnerving eyes. "Who's she?"
"An old friend of daddy's. We haven't seen each other in… in a long time." Quil looks at Leah for help, but she remains silent. "Claire Bear, this is-"
"How old are you, Claire?" Leah interrupts.
Claire swallows noisily and tightens her grip on the straps of her backpack. "I'm five."
"Five? Wow," Leah breathes. She turns her scathing eyes to Quil. "You know, I had a little brother once. He'd be about your age by now, too."
Quil plasters on an even wider smile and steps toward Claire. "Claire Bear, my friend and I are having a grown up talk right now. Why don't you go to your room and watch some TV, hm?"
Claire glances uncomfortably at Leah again. "But Daddy-"
"Claire!" Quil snaps. He tilts her chin up with his hand so she'll have no choice but to look at him. "Go to your room, and don't come out until I say so."
Claire tentatively nods, walking past the living room with wet eyes still trained on Leah. Quil watches her disappear up the staircase to the second floor with a sigh, and he tosses the pokerstick away when the sound of a door closing reaches their ears. He turns to Leah with an annoyed expression.
"Do you want some coffee?" he grumbles.
Leah rolls her eyes, dropping her weapon on the floor, too. "Sure."
She follows Quil into the kitchen, electing to stand near the counter. She watches as he picks through the cupboards to retrieve mugs. It's strange seeing him in a domestic setting; his hulking frame looks out of place in the homely kitchen. He looks even stranger dressed in khakis and a striped polo. There's even a pair of bunny slippers on his feet.
Those large hands of his, carefully working the tiny coffee machine on the counter, used to turn into claws at the drop of a hat and tear into his targets without much care. He used to run around exclusively in designer jeans, usually ripping them to shreds without a second thought when he phased, and with a quick swipe of his credit card he would simply buy another replacement pair.
But that Quil, formerly known as Nighteyes, is no more. He's been replaced by a domesticated, stay-at-home father named-
"Jacob Wolfe?" Leah asks drily. "Seriously?"
Quil glares at her from over his shoulder, and a blush stains the tips of his ears. "Shut up, Leah. You look like a goddamn oompa loompa with that tan, so you have no room to talk," he growls, and it makes Leah smirk. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. "I guess it's too late for an apology, huh?"
"You guess correctly."
He stops his tinkering with the coffee machine and stalks toward Leah with a frown on his face and a steaming mug in his hand. "You can't do this shit around my little girl, Leah."
Leah takes the mug from him. "I won't kill you in front of your daughter," she assures him. "We can do this somewhere else. I know the area. You certainly didn't stray far from home."
That made him one of the easiest people on her list to find, and why she chose him first. Their childhood home in La Push was only an hour out from here.
Quil squints, gauging her words. "You're more rational than we ever gave you credit for."
"I lack sympathy and forgiveness," Leah murmurs, taking a sip of coffee. "Not rationality."
Quil purses his lips. "Look, Leah, I know what I did was fucked up, and if I could take it back then I would. But I can't." He goes to the fridge and pulls off a picture of Claire cuddled with an Asian man who Leah can only assume is Quil's partner. "You have to let this go, Leah. Do you want my baby to grow up without her daddy?"
Leah's expression doesn't change. Trying to dredge up family sympathy points won't work on her, especially after that they did. "She still has her other daddy," she points out.
Annoyance flashes through Quil's eyes. "I'm a different person now, Leah," he pleads, exasperated.
"Congratulations! I don't care," Leah whispers. She leans her elbows against the counter, clutching the mug in her hands with a sneer. "Where do you wanna die, Nighteyes?"
"You're funny, Frostfur," Quil growls, throwing the photograph down. "Real fuckin' funny!"
He lunges forward, fingers curved in front of him like claws as his bones shiver under his skin and his eyes glow once more. It seems like he's disregarding his fair play rules for a quicker ending to this match.
Leah smirks, tossing her mug aside. Leaping over the counter, she meets Quil halfway in the kitchen. She pulls her arm back and swings unexpectedly, raking her own claws across his face.
Quil shouts in shock, clutching at the spewing gashes in his face. He crashes into the cabinets behind him and glass rains down. As he looks up with his good eye, Leah wastes no time stabbing him through the heart with her silver dagger. He jolts with a grunt and sinks to the ground. His hand drops from his face, and his eye is wide as blood seeps through the cotton of his shirt.
"You… you're a…wolf?" Quil rasps.
Leah steps over him, snarling in his face. She feels a burning in her eyes as they glow the same shade of blue as his. Quil heaves once, twice, and his heart finally gives out. The blue in his eyes revert back to a dulled brown.
She pants like a racehorse as she pulls the dagger out, listening to his skin sizzle from the silver, and watches with grim satisfaction as blood continues to weep from the wound.
Leah spins, holding the dagger out threateningly when she senses someone behind her.
Claire stands in the doorway with wide eyes and flecks of blood on her face, staring in mute horror. Leah curses under her breath and turns away, snatching a dish towel from the counter. She begins to clean off the gore from her dagger.
"It wasn't my intention for you to see this. I'm sorry about that." She glances back at Claire. "But you can take my word for it... Your father had it coming."
Claire stares on, frozen and dumbfounded.
Leah sticks the dagger back into her thigh holster and turns to face the little girl, bending at the knees until they're eye level. "When you grow up and that wolf gene kicks in, and you still feel raw about this…" she whispers, gesturing at the cooling body of the girl's father on the floor. "I'll be waiting for you."
Still, Claire says nothing. Leah straightens with a sniff and pats Claire on the head as a goodbye, and makes her way out of the kitchen.
One down.
But did we catch that alias Quil used, though? Do y'all know where that's from? *wink wink*
So the assassin codenames. Both are names of fictional wolves from real books.
Nighteyes description from wiki: "Confident, sarcastic, and carefree. He remains energetic and playful even after he has grown from a puppy to an adult wolf." Fitting for Quil's personality (in the books), I'd think.
Frostfur description from wiki: "A cross, fidgety animal. Hostile personality. Complete opposite of her sister [who would be Emily, technically] who is gentle and sweet..." This is what Sam perceives Leah to be (and how the pack believed she was in the books). Obviously, they underestimate her and the facets of her personality!
Care to guess who's next?