A/N: This is an exciting one! Mallory learns a big secret. Would love to hear your thoughts. Also, I am going to stop predicting how long this will be as I keep adding more chapters.
In my personal experience, there are two things that can happen to you when you are immediately rejected by your dad in infancy:
In Kim's case, she became hard wired to search for a fairytale version of love. Some beautiful, perfect guy that would love her unconditionally. She fell in love with Jared in elementary school and after years of mooning over him, he ended up loving her back. Cue the Hallmark movie.
In my case, I became afraid of love. If my dad, one of the two people that are supposedly wired to love you, rejected me so early, what's to stop some random guy? I wasn't scared to approach, confront or even be sexual with guys like Kim was. That came fairly easy to me. But really letting someone in, really being loved or falling in love was frightening.
My first actual boyfriend, Max, could maybe have been my first love. He was outwardly the opposite of Paul in many ways. He was kind to everyone and polite. He was well liked by teachers and always smiling. And I liked him immediately. He was a good guy. I liked his soft smile and gentle approach to everything. But something stopped me from letting him all the way in and showing him all of me. And after a while of being emotionally distant, it just kind of stopped. Fizzled out.
Still, even though I liked Max a lot, I liked Paul more.
Paul was on permanent replay in my head in a way Max never was. His face, his eyes, his amazing arms, but more than his body, I'd think about his calming voice and presence. How I felt light as air when I was with him and the way he could see straight to my soul and comfort me with a single sentence or even just a glance.
The week after Emily's party Paul asked me to go on four more apologies with him and I didn't refuse. When he finished and he asked if I wanted to do other things too, I jumped at the chance. Paul was a real person to me now, not just some characterchure of an asshole whore like I thought before.
In our one on one time together Paul took me to his favorite fishing spot and showed me how to run a fishing line through a rod. I was attentive and genuinely interested to learn from him. I then took him to my favorite bookstore and introduced him to some of my favorite feminist icons, Ruth Bader Gingsberg and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson. He was attentive and seemed genuinely interested to learn from me. Everything was becoming so real.
Out of everyone in my life, I was worried about Sydney's reaction the most. Syd thought she loved Paul freshman year and lost her virginity to him, just to be discarded like trash. She was my oldest friend, and the whole thing wreaked the worst kind of betrayal. But she was oddly silent about the whole thing and she didn't flinch when she saw us walking together or talking together.
Oliva and Caroline voiced that my new interest in Paul was weird. They didn't balk, though. Maybe because they noticed a change in Paul or that our relationship, or whatever it was, wasn't yet sexual. This was unlike every other one he had in La Push or Forks. I also made a concerted effort to see and hang out with them.
On a Thursday afternoon I made my way out of the school building and ran into a rather chummy Quil. I had made time for my girlfriends and Paul but hadn't seen him since Emily's party. So when he asked me if I wanted to get some ice cream in Forks I readily agreed. As we drove over I made an effort to ask about what was going on in his life, but he was oddly secretive about it. As we crossed over into Forks the car started to sputter a bit and jut forward and then it petered out as Quil steered it over to the side of the road, right by the forest pretty much in the middle of nowhere.
"Oh, fuck," he said, annoyed with himself. "I ran out of gas."
Quil called Embry who seemed extremely perturbed and chastised him heavily on the other end of the phone line. Still, Embry said he would go to the gas station to get some gas and then try to find us on the road. I wasn't mad at Quil, these things happened and I had no place to be. Still, I could tell he was awfully embarrassed. As we waited, we got out of the car to stretch our legs. We chatted for a little bit, but all of a sudden Quil turned quiet and started to sniff the air.
"Oh, fuck," he said rather loudly. He turned to me, panicked.
"What's the matter?" I asked him, concerned. "Do you smell gas or something?"
"Mal, get in the car and lock the doors, ok?" He took off his shirt. "I am going to go in the woods for a bit, don't talk to anyone, do you understand?" Terror and anxiety ran through his voice.
"What?! Why?"
"Just listen to me Mallory," he said forcefully, but before I could get in the car a man appeared out of the woods, tall, pale and menacing. His hair was light and slick and his eyes were red as blood. He approached us and smelled Quil.
"You're a dog," he said pointedly to Quil. He then eyed me. "But she's not." Quil pushed me into the car and shut the door.
"Stay the fuck away from her or I will rip you to shreds,"
"I'm not in the mood, pup," the man said, "I'm hungry and ready for my snack. This one smells especially sweet." He moved toward the door. Quil appeared red, started to fervently shake and then lunged toward him, said "Sorry, Mal," and then before immediately exploded into...a giant brown wolf.
Terror pulsed throughout my body and I broke out in a sweat. I started screaming in his car at the sight before my eyes. The man moved like a freight train and rapidly attacked the brown wolf who bled on his front legs. Almost immediately there was howling from the woods. The brown wolf leaped and pinned the man down but he then forcefully kicked the brown wolf off of him and the wolf went tumbling in the air. The man got up and moved rapidly toward the car, and he looked enraged and brown wolf then sprung toward him, knocking him down and biting relentlessly.
At that moment two more wolves appeared, one a darkish brown and gray mix and the other mostly gray with white feet. They all attacked the man together and blood splattered on the windshield. I started to scream again at the top of my lungs from the shock of it all. The Gray wolf turned his head toward me and started moving closer to the car. I started panicking, not breaking eye contact with the wolf's amber eyes. Then, I watched as the gray wolf melted slowly into the shape of a human, into the shape of Paul before my very eyes. He was naked and glistening in sweat, breathing heavily and looked formidable.
"Mallory, are you okay?" he opened the car door and asked, gauging to see if I was hurt. He tried to move closer to me. His amber eyes made me want to rush toward him, but fear took over and I rammed my body to the furthest end of the car and panted in shock.
"Holy fuck!" I screamed, letting horror wash over me. I looked over at the other wolves through the windshield. They effortlessly transformed into a bleeding Quil and a breathless Jared. I let out another ear splitting shriek. I opened the door and got out of the car with no plan. I just wanted to be home and away from them. I started to run, but Paul shuffled out and caught up to me, putting his arms around my torso to stop me.
"I'm sorry, Mal. I know you are totally freaked out right now, but I can't let you go alone here. There are a lot of them around right now…" he said somewhat gently. Then his tone changed as he turned to Quil. "I can't believe Quil was so fucking careless" he turned around and hissed at him.
"I can take care of my fucking self," I sneered at Paul, as if he were a monster and pushed him away from me and slipped back into my old sass toward him, "I don't need some bro." I knew my words hit his heart like daggers, but only fear spoke out of my mouth.
"Listen," he said calmly, "I'll get Leah if you want, but no human can handle them," and he gestured to the slain body on the side of the road.
"Wh what is that?" I asked, scared to receive an answer.
"Uh, that's a vampire," he said, trying to read my face, as Jared and Quil looked on.
"You said no human… y you're not human…?" I sputtered out.
"I'm a shapeshifter," he said steadily and I started to breathe rapidly.
"...and Quil and Jared," I looked over at Jared who had finally put on some shorts. Quil still stood there naked, with his shirt wrapped around his waist, his shorts in tatters on the ground. His arm was miraculously healed and that's when I saw that he had it too: the same circular wolf tattoo that adorned Paul and Jared was also on Quil.
"Oh, my god," I said. "I have to warn Kim," I said in a harrowing tone.
"She knows," Jared calmly stated.
"What?!" I breathed out and turned to my left to see Embry pull up in his car.
"Fucking hell," he said as he got out and looked at the scene.
"One of the newborns," said Jared, "maybe a scout," his hands on his hips as he spit to the ground. "Paul and I were on patrol and came over as soon as Quil phased."
I ran over to Embry, shaking. "Please Embry. Please take me home," I urged. He glanced at Paul and then nodded at me without replying to Jared at all. He shoved the gas can in Quil's hands.
"You picked an excellent fucking time to run out of gas, you idiot," Embry spat at him and ushered me into his car. We pulled away as Jared and Quil dragged the vampire body off. Paul just stared at us as we pulled away.
"Embry, they're all fucking magic wolves!" I shouted as he sped to my house, "And they killed a vampire! I think we have to call the police. Or maybe the army. Oh my fucking god! I know it sounds crazy, I would have never have believed it, but I saw him change into a wolf right in front of my eyes," I yelled frantically.
Embry listened to me ramble on. "We can't tell anyone, Mal," he said calmly.
"What?! Why? Aren't you freaked out by this? Didn't you see the dead body!"
"Well, technically he was already dead," Embry laughed.
His nonchalance made it click for me. I thought about Quil's arm healing. And then how easily Embry recovered from Kim hitting him with the Pontiac.
"Y...you. You're one of them too. You have the tattoo." I nearly screamed, realizing they were all connected.
He nodded, silently. Fear fell over
"Mal, I think Kim can explain it better to you, okay?" I immediately began thinking of the last time I saw her bare bicep. Was she a wolf too?!
"Is...is she?" I stammered, fear pulsating off my skin. He shook his head no.
"I'm sure Paul will be by later to go over everything…"
"Oh, I never want to see him again…" fell out of my mouth, not realizing what I said until I said it.
"Ugh," he said with an annoyed expression. "We're back on that shit again? Man, I hope I never get an imprint." I scrunched my eyebrows at him, confused at his words, but lacked energy to question him further.
We pulled up to my house and I threw open Embry's car door and then nearly knocked down my own front door. I ran up to my sister's room and barged in on her doing some math homework. I was sweating and frazzled.
"Tell me what the hell is going on, right now, Kim" I said with venom coming out of my voice. She turned to me and right then she knew that I knew.
All she could do was look at me with an alarmed expression and say, "Oh, fuck."
A/N: So what do you think? How's that for how an imprint finds out?