-MAISIE-
We had all seen how hatred and anger had driven Maria to Forks. The difference between Maria and Irina was that Irina had family to help us temper her ire. Kate called once Leah had finished explaining to Sam and Carlisle that she had identified Irina's scent as the one left behind while she was creeping around La Push.
"Don't worry," Kate reassured us. "We're not letting her out of our sight. We'll have an intervention with her to stop this madness. I'm so sorry you're still having to deal with it."
That was only half true. Kate, Garrett, Tanya, Eleazar, and Carmen would be dealing with it. Better them than us.
"What is it with vampires and grudges?" Gunner asked. The immediate threat having past, he was lounging on the couch with his head in Leah's lap. She was threading her fingers through his hair, but still wearing her pensive look from earlier.
"When you've got eternal life, there's infinite time before you to devote to revenge," Edward offered by way of explanation. I took a cue from my brother, curling up with Jasper in one of the armchairs. He was quick to wrap his arms around me, pressing a soft kiss to my temple. "I think Maria was evidence enough of that. She waited how many decades for the perfect opportunity to try to even the perceived slight of Jasper leaving her army."
Jasmine was sitting on the floor, her knees pulled up to her chest. She had divided her magnificent curls into twin puffy buns that sat atop her head, a few errant strands framing her face.
I twirled the length of Jasper's hoodie string around my finger, watching her. Jasmine still wasn't entirely comfortable with all of us. We were all learning about her in spurts, when she offered something about herself.
"All the time in the world still wasn't enough for how angry Maria was all the time." Jasmine didn't often talk about her experience in Maria's smaller newborn army, created with the express purpose of killing both Jasper and I. "We didn't even know Maisie's name for the first month and a half because Maria just called her 'la puta' all the time."
"She called me WHAT?!" I didn't mean to yell, but I was instantly mad. I pushed away from Jasper, propelling myself upright in my anger. Edward chuckled at my reaction, though Leah and Gunner wore twin masks of confusion. Jasper caught my wrist, trying to pull me back down, a soothing wave of calm nudging at me. I glared at him over my shoulder.
"Translation for the white boy, please." Gunner asked, raising his hand like he was in class.
"For the Quileute girl, too."
"It's a derogatory term," Jasper quickly threw in their direction. He tugged again at my arm. "Honey, please. You can't fight the dead."
"Bet." I told Jasper, before turning to my brother and Leah. "It means, like, whore or bitch in Spanish. I'm pissed."
Finally, I let Jasper pull me back down to him. But I crossed my arms over my chest, continuing my pout. He continued to try to soothe me, but I stubbornly pushed away every attempt.
Now Gunner was having a hard time containing his laughter, too, as if Edward laughing wasn't bad enough. Stupid ginger boys.
"I'm gonna remember that one," he managed between his laughs.
"I'm sure you will, pendejo," I grumbled. He only laughed again, oblivious to the insult I had hurled his way.
"How do you propose to fight the dead?" Edward asked, clearly not done with baiting me.
"Get me a Ouija board, I'll summon her."
I wasn't all that sad when Gunner and Leah headed up to bed and Edward and Jasmine went home. That night, while Jasper laid in bed with me, I wasn't so confident that Kate and Tanya's 'intervention' would be all that effective with Irena.
"What if they don't get through to her?" I asked Jasper. Gunner and Leah were both asleep—I could tell from the even breathing coming from the room next door. The walls in our house weren't thin by any means, but I had noticed that my hearing was improving the longer I was on this blood supplemented diet. It was kind of like when my reflexing got better after the second dose of venom from Maria.
"We have Alice," Jasper reminded me. I knew he had a point, but I groaned anyway.
"She has her blank spots, though. Alice can't see the wolves. Leah tried to ask her who was hanging around the territory line, and Alice couldn't see, of course."
I felt his shrug against my cheek, where my head lay on his shoulder. "Irena doesn't know that. Hell, our Denali cousins didn't even know about the treaty with the wolves until Laurent died. She can't use Ali's sight weakness as her strength."
He really did have a point there. I couldn't argue with that.
I rolled myself so I was on top of him. completely flush with his body. "But, they won't be able to watch Irena forever."
Jasper's hands found my waist in the dark. He dragged them downward, over my hips and across the back of my this before moving them back up. I didn't mean too, but I shivered against him, making him chuckle.
"Would it surprise you if I told you I wouldn't care much what happened to Irena?"
It was rare that Jasper used his true vampire speed in front of me, but this time he did. Before I knew it, I was beneath him. He titled my chin up, kissing along the length of my throat. Sometimes, I thought he liked to show off the control he was able to exert over his bloodlust when he was around me.
"No," I admitted with a breathy laugh. "I hear your kind is prone to grudges."
"Oh, and you're not?"
It was equally rare for me to use my full enhanced strength with Jasper. I kept it that way so it would be a surprise every time, such as now when I pushed against him playfully, giving myself enough room to wiggle out from under him.
"Has anyone ever told you that you're rude, Jasper Whitlock?"
He was still faster and stronger than me. Giggling, I did my best to escape him, but it was no use. With a victorious little growl, Jasper easily pinned me beneath him again.
"Maisie Thompson likes to speak ill of me, but what does she know? I hear she tries to fight ghosts."
"Sounds like a cool girl to me." I barely got the words out before Jasper nearly interrupted me with a kiss.
I was itching to make a trip to Denali, where Kate and Tanya were effectively keeping Irena under house arrest, but I knew Gunner was liable to want to come with me. I also knew that Leah would not be okay with that. It wasn't hard to see why she wanted as many miles between Gunner and Irena as possible after Irena's little outburst on the boat.
For the time being, I made myself be okay with waiting. It gave me more time to spend with Gunner and Leah for the last three days of their visit, anyway. I learned a lot about the goings-on in Forks while we played in what was left of the winter snow, which had been stubbornly sticking around.
"Did Leah bother to tell you about her mom and Charlie Swan?" That question earned Gunner a face full of snow courtesy of Leah.
"We don't speak of that, Gunner Rhett." I had gotten Leah into the habit of referring to Gunner with his full name. "It's a cursed subject."
"You could be Bella's stepsister!" I couldn't help laughing, earning myself a deluge of snow myself. Quickly, I turned away, letting the snow pelt me on the back. While I laughed, I peeked through the living room window, where Edward and Jasper sat around the little book Gunner had brought.
With their copper and gold heads dipped low over the coffee table, I knew they were reading the hand-written pages and checking each other's translations. It was slow work, translating Latin to English, but they were making headway.
"Please tell me you'll call Charlie 'dad'," I continued despite Leah still lobbing snow at me. "The guy deserves a child who'll show him that respect."
Leah paused in her assault long enough to roll her eyes. "Please, don't remind me. We all made fun of Bella endlessly for calling him by his first name."
"Can you imagine if one day we just started calling Dad Chris instead?" Gunner asked. "We'd be dead."
"Exactly."
Other notable tidbits included Sam and Emily's upcoming wedding, the boon in the Newtons' business brought on by the antics of the wolves disposing of straggler vampires (some of the younger wolves had left prints behind at the scene), and a myriad of stories about Ava finding Gunner entirely lacking and incapable.
Those three days went by too quickly. Before I knew it, the final morning dawned, and we had to take Gunner and Leah back to the airport. I knew it was only a few weeks until Jasper and I would return to Forks for the summer—before going to South America—but still. Saying goodbye was never getting any easier.
With spring coming slowly to Alaska, I took up running again. It was impossible when the winter snows were piled thick and high all around. I had started last summer, when we first arrived in the state. Now the snow was either melted or sequestered to shade spots; I hardly splashed through any at all when I took my winding runs around the forest.
I always ran with headphones in, much to Jasper's chagrin. He thought it was foolhardy, especially when I went running while the others were off hunting. A bear would be louder than my music, I would tell him. But a vampire would not be, which I never took into consideration until Irina interrupted my run just one day after Gunner and Leah had left.
She dropped, fluid, from a tree. Irina landed just before me. I was so surprised that when I tried to stop short of colliding with her, I slipped in the spring mud, falling backward.
Irina made no attempt to help me. I caught myself—barely—before I landed on my ass. Hands muddied, I pushed myself up and pulled my headphones out. "What?"
Before she even spoke, Irina already looked annoyed. My lack of greeting didn't do anything to change that. Her pale eyebrows pulled together; her mouth twisted like whatever she was about to say left a bad taste in her mouth. "You've bested me before."
"I don't remember you doing much work last year," I told her. "I bested Maria, while you sat back and let someone else take your shot for you."
Her eyes narrowed, clearly not pleased. I realized her eyes were as black as they had been that night on the boat. Irina still hadn't fed. She would be testy, I knew. Irina's twisted mouth shifted into a smirk.
"I hear you've got travel plans this summer. South America, right? What a shame. Italy is lovely in the summertime. I think I might make a visit there, myself."
"I don't have any business in Italy. Where's Kate? Or Tanya?"
Irina smiled here, lovely and radiant. She was just as beautiful as Kate and Tanya, though I hadn't realized before. What a change not having your face perpetually scowling can make.
"Just a suggestion. Now, please excuse me. I think I'll catch up to the others. I've been let out on good behavior, so I can drink. Edward and Jasper are off hunting, right?"
I regarded her for a moment, rubbing my hands together to dislodge the mud on my skin. "Uh, yeah."
She was gone before I even finished the sentence. Rolling my eyes, I put my headphones back in. With my path no longer blocked, I started to run again.
"What a weirdo," I muttered to myself. Was this Irina's weird way of trying to make amends? Offering travel suggestions to me before joining the boys and Jasmine to hunt? I guessed apologies were overrated.
