Eighteen
Leah woke up with Mike Newton asleep beside her. He was stretched out on his stomach, mouth slightly agape with a scratchy snore muffled distantly by the pillows. After beer and pool at the Evergreen, Leah had driven them back to her place on the reservations, Mike's hand on her thigh the entire car ride there.
She had looked up, once, reluctantly, on the drive back to her apartment, her eyebrow raised toward the northside of town where the Cullen's lived. There was a pang of guilt as she passed the final turn off out of Forks; her last escape route to Jacob and the other wolves.
She didn't take it.
She knew that she should, but she didn't want to.
When they reached her place, Mike kissed her. His mouth slow and lavish on hers. His touch, and the beer buzz, made her forgot Sam and Emily and Jacob and Billy.
His touch made every thought disappear from her mind. He told her that he missed her, and she agreed that she missed this, revealing in the oblivion that physical touch could cause.
Leah's phone had rung while they were having sex—she wouldn't classify what they were doing as 'making love,' the acumen felt too adult for what they were doing. She viewed 'love making,' as something to be done with candles and proclamations of love, and she had rolled her eyes every time a man tried to light a candle in front of her. Sam had been the last one to do that with any meaning, and she wasn't interested in reenacting that scene with anyone else. She had heard the buzzing of her cell while Mike was thrusting above her, his neck thrown back, close to his own release, his chest flush with hers. She had both of her ancles wrapped around his ass, spurring him on, while his moans became hissing pleas, and she couldn't bear to have him to stop.
Even though she knew who was calling.
There were only two people who called her these days—her mother, and her brother.
Now, extricating herself away from Mike's sleep-heavy stretch to pull on her cotton underpants and dark grey sports bra, both of which Mike had peeled off of her in his charming haste, she fumbled inside her jeans pocket for her phone. She wondered out into the hall, eager that the brightness of the display light not wake him up.
First, she saw the missed call from Seth, the one she hadn't answered. Then the text:
I'm okay. Couldn't stop the change. Had to hide in the park all day. Finally, back. Call me.
Leah barely had the text read before she was dialing his number. She wondered farther away from the bedroom door while the phone rang, creating what she hoped was enough distance to give her privacy from Mike.
"Hey," Seth answered easily, lazily. His voice always calmed her down.
She greeted him with an equally lazy, "Hey," shrugging her shoulders as though this were any other day, and any other conversation.
"You okay?" He asked. Typical to ask after her well-being before allowing her to ask about his own.
"I didn't change," she offered. Careful not to raise her voice and keep her words ambiguous. Mike had no idea how many supernatural beings lived in Forks, and she wasn't about to let him find out.
Seth made a disgruntled noise. She could feel his eyeroll over the phone, despite the distance. "How is that even possible? I've never felt anything like that, except maybe the first time I changed. There was literally nothing I could do to stop it. One minute I'm asleep and the next I'm biting back screams while half my body erupts in animal fur."
Leah shrugged. "I can't explain it." She had wandered into the living room, close to the front door. She had a purple lava lamp on the side table beside the couch and she began to offhandedly finger the hot glass, letting the ultraviolet shadow stretch up and down her arm.
Seth could sense her tone. "What's wrong? Are you alone? Can anyone hear you?"
"I'm alone," she lied. "Billy came to see me earlier. He wanted to talk about Jacob, it freaked me out a little, I guess."
"Billy?" Unlike Leah, Seth still revered their Chief.
Seth was so much better than her, he never thought ill of anyone, not even herself.
Seth went on, "Sam and the other's must have transitioned as well."
"Yep," Leah confirmed.
"Did you go to the Cullen's to see what's going on?"
Leah loved her brother, and she loved talking to him, but her skin was starting to crawl at the mention of the Cullen's and vampires and wolves.
"I just got off work," she explained.
"You just got off work?" Seth questioned. "It's nearly midnight."
"I was working on the exterior of the building, the gutters are leaking, you remember. I can't spend my life waiting around for Ricky and the others to drop by whenever they feel like repairing it."
Seth sounded far away. "I guess."
"It's true," she pressed.
"I believe you," he obliged. "I just think you should get out more, spend time away from preschoolers and gutters, maybe."
"Did mom call you?" She asked, trying to change the subject.
Seth's smile changed the inflection of his words. "Yeah, she and Charlie will be back on Friday. They want me to come up over the weekend."
"And?"
"I want to," he revealed, "But I have so much homework, and practice. Coach said I would probably get to play in this game, it'll be on the local station."
The thought of her baby brother on TV, even playing third string football for a state school, made her giddy. "Mom will tape it."
"The whole tribe will tape it."
They both laughed.
For the first time Leah realized how dark her apartment was. She didn't turn any lights on when she left the bedroom, and standing here, close to the window, letting the streetlight fall slantwise on her face, she realized just how isolated she had become living here. Everything she owned had once belonged to someone else, everything from her couch to the mugs in her kitchen cabinet.
"I miss you," she said with a sigh.
"I miss you, more," he echoed, unironically. Seth was always the most genuine person that she knew. "You should go up to the Cullen house, if nothing else, then to check on Jacob. He's isolated himself from the rest of us with his—" Seth struggled for the right word. "—relationship with Bella's daughter. He might, well…" Leah heard him take a deep breath. "…He might need help. If everyone shifted all of the sudden than something is going on up there. It might be that creepy Italian coven. The ones with the Dracula capes and red eyes."
Leah hated to admit it, but he was probably right. "I know," she agreed, though with a long list of silent reservations. "I've been thinking about that most of the night."
"Yeah, see, thinking 'I should go check on Jacob,' should not equate to 'Imma repair the gutters,' you need to learn to act on your feelings. Mom's always telling you that."
Leah rolled her eyes. She didn't need to speak for Seth to know that she was.
"Will you call me back when you're done over there. Let me know that you're okay?"
Sighing, Leah told him that she would. "Don't you have class tomorrow, Mr. 'It's almost midnight?'"
"Don't care," he reassured her. "I won't sleep unless I hear from you, anyway. Okay?"
"Okay."
After Leah hung up the phone she wandered, barefoot, back into her bedroom, where Mike still slept. She could hear the rain splattering on the roof, and for the first time, even though she had always been in her sports bra and underwear, she felt a chill creep up her spine. Part of her wanted to wake Mike up, explain herself. Ask him to stay in bed so he would still be here, when she got back. But what would she stay? "Hey, Mike. Guess what? I'm a werewolf and I need to go check on the vampires who live right up the road and make sure evil isn't afoot…"
She had to make this trip short. She refused to stay there any longer than she needed to. She would just check on Jacob and then leave. In and out.
Leah pulled on her jeans, picking up the first crumpled t-shirt that her hand touched and pulling it over her head. It was baggy and oversized. She didn't give a shit what she looked like. Lastly, she stepped into her shoes by the door and quietly plucking her keys from the bowl beside the front door. Her cell was stuffed into the shoulder strap of her sports bar as she drove away from the tiny apartment.
The roads were nearly empty, just the occasional car's headlights passing her along the way as she made her way up the winding roads to the Cullen house. The farther she got away from town the more and more the hairs at the nape of her neck began to rise.
Cresting the hill, with the spooky big house in sight, she didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. There were no bodies littering the ground and the lights in the house seemed to be on. There was no need to attempt to stealthily enter the property. A house of vampires could smell her from a few miles away, and hear her from even farther.
After parking she let the car door slam shut dramatically, feeling again the same intense beat of annoyance that she had felt all day. In another life she could have been back at her apartment right now, coaxing Mike out of sleep with the insistent curl of her fist against his penis, teasing him until he was ready to rail her into true exhaustion.
The front door to the house opened, the hinges silent. Leah only noticed because the light from the house fell more prominently onto the garden. "Leah?" She heard a female voice question from the doorway.
Leah uncrossed her arms as Esme departed, hastily coming down the stairs to greet her. She hadn't thought to see Esme—her mind and her anger had only allowed her to envision Bella and Jacob and Sam, never the sweet face of Esme.
"Hi," Leah said, shakily, when Esme was a few footsteps away from her. Her tiny shoes crunching under the gravel of the driveway.
Esme smiled demurely, her mouth curling in such a way that made it impossible for Leah to remember that she was a vampire. "I'm so happy to see you."
"It's been a long time," Leah confirmed. She stepped forward. Those long-ago memories of Esme bringing her lunch in those first few weeks since Rasputin (or, whatever the hell her name is) was born, while she, Seth, and Jacob watched the house.
Esme opened her arms to Leah, and Leah stepped inside her embrace. "I missed you," Esme whispered into her hair.
Leah's forehead fell forward against Esme's ice-cold shoulder. "I missed you, too." It was true. There had been no greater confidant for Leah than Esme was in those days. Leah had confessed everything about Sam and Emily, her anger and rage over her father's death, and Esme had held her, similarly to how she was now. And now, letting the ancient vampire enfold her in a loving embrace Leah remembered once again the pain that she had felt, but also the sweet relief of unburdening herself of everything that continually weighed me down.
After Esme pulled away from the embrace, she cupped Leah's cheek, a gesture as loving as a grandmother.
"I came for Jacob," Leah confessed, covering Esme's hand on her cheek with her own.
Esme smiled lightly, a knowing look. A look that said that she knew why Leah had come, and that she understood. "He's back at the cottage with Renesmee."
Esme wrapped her arm around Leah's waist, and moved to walk with her down the slopping hill, but the creak of footsteps on the porch stopped them.
When Leah looked up, she saw a stranger, staring her down, and her breath caught in her throat. Immediately she was washed in the need to shift. It pulled at her skin and her mind like an angry child might pull the wings off a fly. A groan escaped her mouth, a sound of pain and anger. Esme gripped her harder, but fearing the loss of control, Leah pushed her away.
"His name is Alec," Esme explained.
Leah had retreated back to the parked car. Her hand gripping the edge of the spoiler on the back of the trunk. She was white knuckled and suddenly damp with perspiration.
Alice and Jasper appeared beside the stranger on the porch. Leah recognized the pixyish vampire and her southern gothic boyfriend with the perpetually pained expression.
We'll go, she heard one of them say. Her disorientation was so great that she couldn't tell if it was Alice or Jasper, or even if the stranger Esme called Alec was speaking.
Esme was suddenly beside her again, one arm wrapped protectively around Leah as she fell into a crouch against the gravel. "You're stronger than this, Leah. Fight."
Esme was right, and Leah had to claw her way back to calm from the precipice of the change. She couldn't tell how many minutes it took to come back, but eventually, her breathing regulated itself and her skeleton, which had begun to fracture in tiny cracks from the near change, righted itself.
Esme was murmuring in her ear, "You're so strong, Leah. That's it. Come back to us."
Leah was anchored by the rub of Esme's hand on her back.
Explaining the situation, Esme went on, "He came to us this morning. He's been with our Denali cousins in Alaska. He left the Volturi. He's bent on the path of no longer killing humans to feed his hunger."
Leah understood now, why she and the others had been overcome with the need to change.
When she was strong enough, Leah stood, Esme assisting her where she could.
Taking a deep breath, Leah asked, "And they just came to town today?"
"Yes."
"And you really believe a former member of the Volturi would change like that."
Esme gave her a pitying look. "My sister, Tanya believes it. She says he's been with her for months. That he hasn't fed on a human in all that time."
They started to walk down the hill toward the cottage. Esme keeping her arm fastened tightly at Leah's hip.
"That's not possible," Leah interjected. "The Volturi came here all those years ago bent on destruction. It's always been clear that they would eventually come back—finish what they started."
"I know," Esme said placatingly. "Tanya and Garrett, and the others as well, have faith that he has changed. People can change, Leah."
"For better or for worse, I guess."
Leah could make out Jacob up ahead, a dim figure in the backlight of the cottage's electricity. Rosalie, the meanest of the Cullen's, approached them first.
"Rose," Esme warned, keeping her arm around Leah.
Rosalie raised an eyebrow toward Leah, "I thought I smelt another dog on the property."
Leah smirked. "Get away from me." Not looking back to note the glare on Rosalie's face, Leah went on ahead, continuing her trek to Jacob. Esme stayed behind with Rosalie. She could hear the two of them whispering, including Esme's disappointed reproach over Rosalie's rudeness.
Jacob caught sight of her. "What are you doing here?"
Leah noticed, now that she was close enough, that he had taken up a protective stance immediately outside of the little girl's room. She could see the child (looking thirteen, now. Even though the last time she had seen her she had looked no older than seven—Leah's skin shivered in revulsion).
"Billy asked me to come."
Jacob rolled his eyes. "You shouldn't have come."
Leah smirked. "Really? Did you know that Sam and the others were forced into a shift because of that bloodsucker?" She flicked her thumb over her shoulder, gesturing back to the big house, where the former Volturi soldier was hiding out. "Seth had a force change to…"
Jacob's face fell. Leah could tell he regretted her words, but she could also tell that he hadn't thought of Leah or Seth at all until just this moment. And to think, he was once the leader of their ragtag band of wolves. Some Chief he was cutting out to be.
"Is he alright?" Jacob's voice was bitter, resentful.
"Like you care…" She reasoned.
"Of course, I care," Jacob pressed. "It's just that so much happened, all at once. I didn't—"
Leah finished the thought for him, "—Think! You didn't think! Actually, you probably can't think of anything besides Rotisserie, in there." Leah pointed at the window, awash in a liquid amber light from the inside of the little girl's bedroom.
Jacob's fished clenched. "That is not her name. Don't call her that."
Leah rolled her eyes. "Your child bride seems to be fine. Asleep by her bedtime, in fact. Maybe you should try going home and talking to your father."
"For your information," Jacob started, "Ness almost died yesterday. She was sick. I haven't even been able to go in and see her."
Leah stopped him, "Yeah, it must be really hard not to comfort your girlfriend while she battles a cold."
"It wasn't like that," Jacob growled. "You have no idea what it's been like. Carlisle and Alec finally got her stabilized, and now Sam and his pack of hungry rabblerousers are baying at the moon like a bunch of drunk idiots across the water."
"Oh, so you did hear that," Leah interrupted. "Did you know that Sam forced shifted in front of Emily this morning."
Jacob paled. The memory of what Sam had done to Emily all those years ago when he scarred her face was ever present in his mind. He knew that Emily was pregnant. "Is she alright?"
"How the hell am I supposed to know?" Leah continued, her voice rising in frustration. "What do you think, that we still call each other up on the daily so I can hear about how she's pregnant with Sam's baby? You think we discuss cool name combos?"
Jacob reasoned, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. I wasn't thinking."
"Yeah, again with the not thinking. For fuck's sake, Jacob." She crossed her arms over her chest, protectively. "They're up there howling because they don't have any choice to."
"Well, how come you didn't shift?"
"I fought it…"
"You," he raised an eyebrow, "Fought it?"
"Yeah," she said proudly. "Why didn't you shift?"
"I spend too much time over here." He turned, involuntarily toward the window, his eyes casting a longing look at Renesmee on the other side of the window glass. His need to go inside was palpable, Leah could feel it from where she stood. "I'm around them so much, it doesn't bother me so much when I come across a new one."
"Listen to yourself," she shook her head. Her mouth pursed in disgust. "You call them, 'them,' even yourself knows it's not natural."
Jacob was skeptical, and he argued, "What about you and Esme? I saw her arm around you a minute ago."
Leah crossed her arms tightly around her chest. "Are you coming back or not? Billy wants to know."
Jacob stilled. "He shouldn't have come to you. He knows how to reach me."
"A phone call isn't the same, Jacob.
"I can't be around him anymore. He hates the Cullen's. Hates Ness." He repeated, off handedly, "I can't be around him anymore."
Leah scoffed, "You sicken me. What I wouldn't give to talk to my dad again, even once."
Jacob was abashed. "I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking. Harry, though… Would have been different if you imprinted on one of them."
"There's that 'them' again."
"Quit it, alright?"
The front door to the cottage opened, spilling a tapestry of ocher light across them both like a river bursting its bank. Jacob looked chastened, but Leah stood her ground.
Edward Cullen's frame filled the door. His marble-white hand flush against the doorknob. "Is everything alright, here?" His voice was calm, gentle. Devoid of any kind of humanity, Leah thought.
"Just fine," Leah said, tilting her chin up at him, defiantly.
"We're good here." Jacob whirled around, his eyes searching Renesmee out in the bedroom behind him. Checking. Always checking on her. Leah could see that Bella had snuck into the tiny room decorated in grey and white, her lithe body seeming to glow in the lamp light, and was now sitting on the bed beside her sleeping daughter.
Edward paused, looking in turn from Leah to Jacob. Edward nodded at Leah, "Did you come here for Jacob or the others?"
Leah raised an eyebrow. "Others?"
"Sam and the others. They're about ten miles that way," he pointed with an index finger, past where they were standing.
"I know how far it is," Leah insisted. Her hearing was just as keen as his was. Surely, he knew that by now.
When Leah said nothing farther, Edward furrowed his brow, reluctantly reading the jumbled maze of her thoughts.
"Don't you dare," she protested. Fists clenching.
"He can't really help it," Jacob told her.
Edward raised both hands, palms upward. "I'm sorry."
Immediately Leah thought of Mike Newton back at her apartment, hopefully still snoring on his stomach, making her sheets smell like him. But just as soon as she saw the imagine, she started to fume, knowing full well that everything she saw, he could see as well.
"Jacob?" Edward said distractedly, taking a step farther back into the cottage.
Leah could tell from his face that Edward had seen. Quickly she flicked her eyes to Jacob, then back to Edward in a warning glace.
She thought. Don't you dare, and he didn't.
"Jacob?" Edward said again.
Jacob turned away from Leah to look at him.
"I heard from Carlisle," Edward began. Tapping the side of his skull with an index finger, indicating that the communication was telepathic. "He finished running the latest batch of tests on Renesmee's blood."
"And?" Jacob was desperate, suddenly his heart was hammering.
The smallest of smiles crept across Edward's mouth. "He says that it's safe for you to go in and see her."
Jacob dashed into the cottage, not even bothering to look back at Leah before he left, let alone say any kind of goodbye.
Leah smirked, calling out to his retreating back. "That's fine. Have a great night with Rice-A-Roni, or whatever the hell her name is. I'll let Billy know."
Jacob didn't bother responding to her, so desperate was he to be closer to Renesmee than the other side of the window.
When Jacob was gone, turned fully into the interior of the cottage, Edward said, his voice tilted in a bit of sympathy. "Her name is Renesmee. After both her grandmothers, you know."
Leah shrugged. "You couldn't have gone with Carly, after her grandfathers?"
Edward tilted his head. "We went with that for her middle name."
They were at a standoff, staring at each other, like two tired predators, exhausted by the chase. "He didn't mean to hurt you. He thinks very highly of Harry Clearwater, and his own father. He still sees you as a sister."
Leah nodded her head, suddenly past anger and words.
"Emmett and Garrett are up the hill," he pointed again and she rolled her eyes. Smirking, Edward went on, "I know, you can hear them too. I'm just saying, Emmett and Garrett are there if you decide to go." With a quick goodbye he parted from her, plunging her back into the darkness of the night again after he closed the cottage door.
From her position on the outside of the cottage she could see that Jacob had in fact made it into Rumpelstiltskin's (or, whatever the hell her name was) bedroom. She could see him sitting on the edge of the bed, lifting the girl's limp hand and pressing it to his mouth, kissing the flat range of fingers. Her tiny nails oval and glistening a shell pink.
Leah turned away. She could tell that Rosalie was farther off now, pacing the perimeter of the house on her nightly prowl. Esme was standing back, closer to the forests. "I'm going to go on," Leah told her, speaking quietly against the rain. She knew Esme could hear her.
"Don't be a stranger, Leah," Esme said by way of parting.
She could still feel the urge to shift. The need, as present and aching as a wound that just wouldn't heal. With each new intake of breath, it felt like inhaling needles and panic, but she fought it off. The walk up to the river was relatively short.
Emmett and Garrett stiffened when she was within reach. "It's okay, it's just me," she reassured them.
Garret questioned, "Me?"
She knew he could see her, despite the dark, but it had been years since they last met on the battlefield with the Volturi. Although he could never age again, she could.
Emmett grinned. "Leah!" It was less of a greeting and more of a yelp of surprise. "I was just thinking about you." He extended his arm to him, and she gave him a quick fist bump, a ritual they had started all those years ago when she and Emmett shared patrol duties after Rheumatoid Arthritis (or, whatever the hell her name is) was born.
"You were thinking about me?" She noted, dubiously.
Emmett shrugged. "I was. Thinking about how you could whip these puppies into shape." He gestured to the clearing across the river where the line of wolves held their positions.
When Leah stepped forward her bones rattled with the echo of their howls. They had seen her. The sound was outrage, and betrayal, and anger. She uncrossed her arms, confident in her place on this side of the river.
"They've been like this for hours," Emmett confided. "Snarling and biting."
"They haven't crossed the river, though," Garrett added.
"No, they won't."
Emmett slapped the back of his hand against Garrett's forearm. "See, I told you. They won't cross."
"It's not because they don't want to," Leah clarified. "If Sam gave the word, they'd all be on you in a second." She counted the pack. "There's eight now, you'd each have four on you."
For his part, Garrett looked concerned. Trusting her authority on the subject and admitting, with his eyes and facial features that he could not fight his way past four of them.
Emmett, however, smirked deeper, his posture all but daring the pack to come at him. Confident in his ability to destroy any obstacle that might come his way.
"I'm going to go talk to them," Leah told them. "Let me borrow your shirt."
Emmett was baffled. "My shirt?"
"You don't need it…" Her tone brokered no argument, and even though he didn't get it, Emmett pulled his flannel shirt over his head, revealing the sculpted marble of his chest. He grinned at her, expecting appreciation, but she merely rolled her eyes, instead, clearly unbothered by a sight which would make any number of other girl's swoon. Mike's formal girlfriend, Jessica Stanley, came to mind. " Stay here," she warned.
Garrett spoke before Emmett could. "We will. Thank you!"
As she walked away, Leah heard Emmett chide, "Why'd you say that? I want to go over there…"
The cliffside down the river was steep, but only about twelve feet down. An easy enough jump down, as long as she was careful how she landed on her feet. Crossing the river proved to be more difficult. The currents wanted to drag her westward and the rapids were strong. The recent rains had caused the water to stretch up to her thighs. Leah took her time with it, laying Emmett's shirt around her neck to keep it dry. Making sure her eyes were on the wolves in front of her, making sure they understood that she was neither afraid to be on Cullen land, or to approach them via this route.
When she got to the other side, she called out. "Sam, change back and talk to me."
She waited, watching the big wolf pace and snap his jaw. She knew it wasn't in anger, but frustration. Her guess was that he wasn't able to control his shift. He had likely been stuck in this body all day.
"I'll wait, Sam. But I'm not leaving until you talk to me."
She knew from experience that all of the wolves in the line ahead of her were in some form of communication. They were likely all tired, and strung out on the shift, and each one was eager, if not desperate, to reform into their natural human bodies. She could also see the question in some of their eyes. How is it that you did not change? Their eyes seemed to say. Why can't I change back?
Several minutes past, with Sam retreating back into the tree line, as though meaning to shift back, only to return unchanged. The longer she had to wait, the more an extreme idea germinated in her mind.
"Sam?" She finally said, feeling the same intense rage that she always felt before talking on this subject. "I need to talk to you about Emily. You have to change back now."
The howl that the black wolf let out was horrifying. It made Leah recoil back in guilt.
The wolf staggered, snapped his jaw at her. Long tendrils of saliva dripped from his sharp fangs, barred menacingly at her.
Leah stood her ground. "I mean it. Change back and I'll tell you. If you give a shit about Emily you'd change back now."
The wolf retreated back to the darkness of the woods. Leah could hear further growling, and eventually the snapping and tearing of pelt into flesh. She continued to wait. She knew he would come.
Finally, like the coming of the dawn, which must now be only a few short hours away, Sam stepped forward out of the darkness. He was nude, as they all were, following the change. Leah didn't avert her eyes; it was nothing she hadn't seen before. Instead, she kept her eyes fixed on his while he made his way down the slope until he was standing in front of her.
He stared at her, waiting. The pain in his eyes made her both angry and terribly sad. Wordlessly, she handed him Emmett's shirt. Sam curled his lip up in disgust, but when she was more forceful, he eventually took it. Holding it flat, and using it as a shield to hide his penis and testicles.
"Tell me?"
Leah could tell that he was furious, for a myriad of reasons, but it was clear now that his first focus was on Emily.
She sighed, loudly. She couldn't help it. "Emily is fine. Apparently, you ruined the front part of your house, though. But she and," Leah lowered her gaze, "The baby are both fine. She called Billy. Billy came and found me at the school."
"Why didn't you change? I don't understand?"
One of the wolves behind them howled. The noise and assent that they were wondering this as well.
"I fought it," Leah said simply.
"Fought it?"
"Yeah," she confirmed. "Because I'm strong."
There was so much unwritten history between them that he seemed to understand that comment and didn't need further explanation.
"What is happening at the Cullen house? There must be other vampire's here for all of us to shift like this."
Leah looked back to Emmett and Garrett, who still stood sentinel on the edge of the cliff. "Their cousins from Alaska are here."
"No," Sam objected. "There has to be more than that."
"One of the Volturi is with them."
"The Volturi?"
"Yep. Jane's brother, Alec. He's defected from Aro's coven and he's joined the Denali's in Alaska. He's renounced killing humans and wants to live on animal blood like the others."
Sam objected. "You can't possibly believe that."
"Esme does," she said flatly.
His voice was laced with distaste. "I didn't realize you were so close to the Cullen's these days, Leah."
"Esme's better than most," she said. The implication that Esme was better than Emily or even himself made Sam grind his teeth. "You should go home, Sam. Go back to Emily. Check on your family. Tell the others to go home, too. No human was harmed tonight, and the Cullen's would never allow anyone to be hurt. You have to know that by now."
"Where's Jacob?"
"Back at the house."
Same raised an eyebrow. "With Renesmee?"
Leah didn't feel like she needed to answer him.
"Billy misses his son," Sam added offhandedly.
"I guess Billy shouldn't be so judgmental and accept his son's choices."
"Like you accept other people's choices?" The double standard was there, as thick as fog, and forever unspoken between them.
"I accept your choices, Sam," she countered. "That doesn't mean that you and Emily didn't hurt me by making them. That also doesn't mean that we can just move on like nothing ever happened."
For his part, Sam looked abashed. "I am sorry that we hurt you, Leah."
Leah shook her head. "I don't want to talk about this now. I just came over here to tell you to go home. Send them home," she pointed at the line of wolves behind Sam, "And go home yourself."
"It's not that easy," Sam warned.
Leah rolled her eyes. "Yes… Yes it actually is."
"We can't just leave when the tribe and the people of Forks are in danger."
"No one's in danger, Sam. The tribe is fine. The town is fine. The only person who might be in danger is Emily. You know she's worried for you. She shouldn't be so stressed out when she's in that… condition."
"We wanted to tell you, Leah," he reasoned. It was true, even though it had been months since Emily's pregnancy was confirmed.
She pursed her mouth. "And you didn't."
"We don't want to hurt you. You're so sensitive about everything."
Leah's exhaustion was even more intense now. "Just go home, Sam." She rubbed her forehead, as though his words were blows made against her skin. "I'm going back." She turned. Made to go.
"You don't belong with them, Leah. You're Quileute. Your better than them."
"I don't belong with you," She rebuked him sternly, "And how can I be Quileute if no one accepts me as I am." She shook her head. "The Cullen's are no worse than Billy Black and his constant quest for perfection."
She took a cold step back into the river.
"Leah, wait?" He held his hand out to her, stopped her with the curl of his fingers against her upper arm.
She glared at him. "What, Sam? What do you want?"
"Emily loves you. You're like a sister to her."
Leah shook his hand off, angrily.
"I love you," he continued, even as she took another step deeper into the water, and then another. "I never stopped loving you, it's not just the same as it was. You were my best friend once," he continued to speak to her back as she walked away. "You still are my best friend, Leah."
"Go home, Sam," she yelled over the roar of the river. Her footing was strong, she was in no danger at all. "Go back to Emily."
Leah continued on, she had her own person to get back to.