Seventeen
Ultimately, Emmett preferred to hunt on his own. He loved his adopted parents and his siblings, and nothing brought a grin to his face faster than watching Rosalie put another vampire or human in their place with one of her icy glares, but he was at his most lethal and calm when he was alone. Before, in his human life, he had spent his time working on their railroads in Tennessee with his older brothers, heaving and working with heavy metals and stone. It was a hard lifestyle, but in many ways, it prepared him for his destiny of vampirism. He could still remember his last day as a human; still feel the hubris of his last moments with that black bear, convinced, up until the very end, that he, Emmett, would survive the fight. One of his last memories was of the slash of their bear's claws shredding open his chest cavity like a child tearing apart a piece of paper—
—And then his next memory. His first memory, in his new life—Rose.
Rosalie had decided to stay behind at the cottage, keeping an eye out for any danger to Renesmee, making an uneasy alliance with Jacob Black, while the two of them stood like sentinels outside the cottage to protect the little girl they both loved.
Had Emmett been in a more light hearted mood, he would have laughed, but as it was, he was hell bent on getting to the edge of the treaty line. Determined to make his presence known at the border should any of the Quileute Wolves decide to cross the river and come onto Cullen land.
Although he wasn't as fast as Edward, or as calculated as Jasper, or wily as Alice, he was still the strongest of his family. Able to fight with the strength of two vampires, even now, as he was nearing his hundredth birthday. Able to hold the tide of wolves back singlehandedly, if that's what he needed to do to protect his family.
The weather of the pacific northwest was vibrant today. The sky was a dark greyish purple. Although it had been raining on and off for days now, Emmett could smell the next incoming storm on the horizon, his nostrils filling with the warm salt of the earth, the air tinged spicy with ozone. All around him he could feel the wildlife fleeing in panic, not just from the storm, but from his own approach. Animals were more attuned to physical vibrations than humans. Emmett hoped the wolves would pick up on that as well.
As he ran through the forest, he was reminded of a memory of Renesmee, from a few days ago. She was obsessed with Taylor Swift, and the family had gotten together to get her an iPod for her birthday and he and Ness had sat, one ear pod in his ear and the other in Ness's while they listened to her latest album, Emmett was personally obsessed with the song Mine, he couldn't stop listening to it.
"She's from Tennessee, you know?" Ness had told him.
Emmett had sighed, his head hanging in overwhelming awe, fawning over the singer all over again. "Is there anything she isn't? This song is da bomb." He had started to wildly headbang and the room had filled with Ness' giggles. On the other side the room Rosalie had been dancing, sharing in the music and merriment, her vampire hearing able to pick up on the sounds from the tiny device in Ness's hand.
There had never been a time in his human life, when Emmett had imagined having children. He had loved women from a young age, losing his virginity to a girl, slightly older than he was, in a field, in the back of a carnival tent when he was fourteen. He had loved booze and smoking cheap cigars in the back of the boxcars he had traveled on for the railroad. He had made a point to find a lovely girl in each town that he traveled through, his desire for beauty and the release of his body overpowering himself at times. But he had never met a woman that he could imagine himself married to, had never seen a girl's face and thought: I want my daughter to look like her.
Rosalie's greatest desire in her human life had been to be a wife and mother, and they had often wondered what may or may not have been had they met each other sooner. What if Rosalie, a native New Yorker, had taken a trip south and their paths had crossed. It was silly really, Rose came from money and affluence, while Emmett had grown up on sharecropper land in the backwoods of Tennessee, hoping train after train with his brothers to make it to the next work camp.
Often times, in those same moments of wonder, Emmett had indulged her in her fantasies of children of their own. Emmett had ten siblings, his parents both Scotch-Irish Catholics. None of his siblings were still alive, but he had nieces and nephews that he sometimes visited, thought they were well into retirement age now.
He had told Rosalie that had they been married, in this fantastical re-imagining of their human lives, they would have had a huge family. Rosalie wanted three boys and two girls, and Emmett was content with that. She wanted them to all look like him, and many times they had even discussed names. Rosalie liked Charles and Peter and Robert, and for the girls, Lillian (her own middle name) and Vanessa.
Rosalie often talked herself into sadness at what could not be, and Emmett would kiss her temple, trying in vain to make the pain deplete.
If he were ever given the choice to go back to being a human, he would not choose to do so, but he knew that Rose would.
Emmett was getting closer to the howls now, closer to the scuffle in the woods up ahead. With his vampiric hearing he could feel the pads of their feet against the wet dirt, hear the scruff of their pelts when they shook the rain free.
He had to clear his mind of all other things, beyond this.
The cliff edge was up ahead, the long-established line that marked Cullen land from everywhere else in Forks, including the forbidden perimeter of the Quileute reservation.
Emmett smelled them shortly before coming upon them, and judging by the snarl that he was met with when he broke free of the clearing, they could smell him as well.
Wasting no time, Emmett scanned the clearing on the other side of the river, counting six wolves. At a cursory glance he did not see Leah or Seth amongst them. He knew that Jacob had once been able to hear their thoughts, but since he broke free of Sam's pack, he had lost that ability. Emmett could recognize Sam's dark pelt coloring, but beyond that he could not tell which wolf correlated to which human male in the tribe. Although he wouldn't classify his relationship with Seth and Leah as particularly close—they had only spoken a handful of times since they stood together against the Vulturi a few years go—he would have preferred having them by his side now. Emmett was not afraid of the wolves, but he didn't want the tensions of the day to spill over into violence with these animals if it didn't have to.
Leah, after all, had the biggest balls in the room, and if she had been by his side today, she would have thrown these dogs to the fire with a single fierce glare.
"What do you want here?" Emmett shouted to the wolves, his voice echoing over the raging water.
His question was met with silence and the stony stares of the pack.
Emmett raised an eyebrow. "What's the matter, cats got your tongue?"
Two of the wolves, smaller ones, taking up stances at the edge of the pack snapped their jaws at him, threateningly. The look in their eyes suggested violence and calamity.
Emmett snarled, his lip curling while his blood lust flared. He could easily imagine what these pups would want to do. He though fleetingly of the sight of Rose or Ness or Alice threatened by these creatures and his nostrils flared anew in rage.
Garrett was suddenly at his back.
"What are you doing here?" Emmett snarled. Just the thought that anyone back at the house had thought for an instant that he needed backup, that he couldn't take this pack of crying mutts brought on a further wave of anger and rage. "I don't need your help here?"
Garrett was just as snappish as Emmett. "No one asked me. I came on my own."
The wolves growled again from the other side of the river.
"What do they want?" Garrett asked. His stance as changed slightly, so that he was mirroring Emmett. Torso's flung forward with heels and toes pointed toward their enemies, ready to spring across the cliffside and river way at the slightest provocation.
"They're here because they can sense there are more vampires in Fork's again. Things have been quiet with Billy and the rest of the Quileute's since the Vulturi left, but now, they can sense you and Tanya and Alec." Emmett continued, smirking, "As you can see, they're not happy about it."
Garrett remembered his previous experience with the wolves, they had fought alongside them together in the battle with the Vulturi shortly after Edward and Bella's daughter was born. They had once been allies, but now, they were clearly enemies again. "Why don't they cross the river? Why don't they attack us?"
The head wolf, a large black creature howled again, the sound was primal. Guttural. Full of rage. The insult of it made Emmett hiss. "This is the treaty line. If we take a step beyond this cliff, we'll be on Quileute land and they'll have the authority to attack, but they won't cross this line unless we do. Sam—that one—" he pointed to the head wolf; the black fur matted with rainwater. "—Is Sam Uley. The Quileute's are a proud people. They believe in their right to protect this land. They don't consider themselves the types to start the fight. That's why they won't cross this line. But they will finish this fight if we cross them the wrong way tonight." Emmett smirked again. "Or at least that's how Leah explained it to me once."
"Leah?" Garrett asked. He remembered the female wolf with the hard edges and slightly sour personality. "Where is she now?"
Emmett shook his head. "No idea. She's not with them though."
"No one sent me here," Garret explained, sensing his friends unasked question. "I just couldn't stand to be cooped up in the house anymore. The sounds," he meant the howling, "Are making my skin crawl."
Garrett continued, "I passed Rosalie back at the cottage. She wanted me to tell you," Garrett blushed slightly, "Well, she yelled out something very risqué as I ran past, and honestly I'm a bit uncomfortable to repeat it."
Emmett laughed, his chortle deafening the cacophony of the wolves beyond them. He could imagine Rose in her fiery rage, breasts bared in the bedroom they shared upstairs in the Cullen house, her skin rubbed raw from his palms on her while she whispered silkily into his ear.
Emmett slapped Garrett on the arm. "Bet it makes you miss Kate back up in Alaska, eh?"
The comment silenced Garrett and he didn't respond.
They stayed there well past evening and into full dark. Both vampires hungry for the prospect of a fight even though Sam stayed resolute on the other side of the water.
When it was nearing midnight both men were started by footsteps behind them and a female voice warning, "It's okay, it's just me."