-GUNNER-
Jasper left me on the front lines at the Cullen house.
"You can explain the situation to the others?" He asked, arm wrapped protectively around my sister despite the threat being thousands of miles away. Maisie's face was pale, except for the redness around her eyes and nose from all her crying. She wouldn't look up from the floor. Her right hand was clamped over the crook of her opposite elbow, holding tightly to the full moon tattoo we both shared.
"Uh, yeah. Well enough." Jasper was the only one to respond, nodding solemnly. With his free hand, he gently caressed Maisie's face, wiping away some of her tears.
"They'll be able to fill in any spots you or Leah miss."
When he moved toward the stairs, Maisie followed along. I watched them walk across the hallway landing, disappearing behind a door that must have been Jasper's bedroom. Music started playing—something soft, even though it was loud enough for me to hear in the living room. Meant to cover more of Maisie's crying, I was sure.
As soon as they left the room, I let myself fall heavily into the closest armchair. It was well-worn, still holding the shape of a much larger body in its cushions. Emmett. His name surfaced in my mind. Maisie had told me before that Emmett was the strongest vampire Carlisle had ever known, rivaling the insane strength found in newborn vampires.
Surely whatever—whoever—Maisie was afraid of couldn't compare to Emmett.
But even that thought didn't make my stomach feel less tight. Or my heart slow. The truth of it was, I had never seen Maisie like this. Not even when she fought against Maria, believing her lie that Jasper was dead. My sister had complete and infallible faith in Jasper Hale.
For Maisie to think this was something Jasper couldn't fix did not bode well for the rest of us.
My one stroked of luck during all of this was that Leah and the other Cullen siblings were fast. I didn't have to sit long with my thoughts before Rosalie threw the front door open, leading Alice by the arm behind her. Alice's face was blank, her mouth slightly slack and lips parted, eyes hazy and unfocused. Her movements were mechanical as she followed her sister's lead.
"What's wrong with her?" I asked, jumping to my feet. Like I could have helped. Rosalie only glared at me, letting me know how stupid she deemed my question.
"Oh, nothing. She's just using her sight." Emmett explained. He was making a beeline for his chair, but when he realized I had been sitting in it, he redirected his path and flopped himself onto the couch. Rosalie pulled Alice into the living room, guiding her to sit in another armchair across from me. She perched on the arm, watching Alice's hands closely. Fingers tapping against her thumb, it looked like she was counting.
Edward and Jasmine came in next. While Edward's eyes kept flickering upward toward the ceiling, Jasmine didn't look too good herself. Her face seemed pale, and she kept pulling at her curls where they spilled out from her low pigtails. Unlike the last time I had seen her, when her eyes were still a muddled red, they were clearly golden like all the other Cullens'.
Leah came in last, probably because she had to get dressed. She kept extra clothes in my car. One of the downfalls of being able to shapeshift into a wolf was that it destroyed your clothes, leaving you naked once you were human again.
She came right to me, fitting herself beside me so we were sharing the chair. "Did you talk to the others?"
I whispered the question to her, scared to chance breaking Alice's concentration. Leah, I knew, could talk to the rest of the pack telepathically. "Just Sam, Jared, and Paul. They were on a cautionary patrol. I told them we didn't need it and I would explain later."
"Dammit, Jasper," Rosalie hissed, seemingly unprovoked. The words sounded like the dangerous hiss of a snake before striking, a warning of the venom to come. It made me jump, but when I looked to Leah, she only dropped her gaze to her lap.
"Babe," Emmett tried to reason. "He couldn't ask Kate and Garrett to do that."
"What's going on?" I snapped, not caring now about the volume of my voice. It was hard being human when everyone else around you could hear things you couldn't.
"Kate called Maisie back," Edward explained for me, but not after sighing in such a way to convey what an inconvenience it was to him. "They weren't able to catch Irina in time. She's already made it to Voltaire, the home of the Volturi in Italy. Jasper told them to back off."
"Why the hell would he do that? Maisie said they were going to help."
"If Kate and Garrett interfere now, they would be killed for attempting to stop Irina report a crime within our realm." A crime. Because Jasper telling Maisie he was a vampire when we were in high school was deemed a crime punishable by death, at least according to whatever asshat vampire overlords were ruling.
"Tell me something good, Ali," Emmett cut in, before I could say anything else. Looking at Alice, I realized she was coming out of her vision trance. She gave a delicate shake of her shoulders as if returning to her body.
"Edward's right. Caius would have called for Kate and Garrett's executions if they had followed Irina into Voltaire. But Jasper's right, too. He knew we would stand better chances letting Irina make her report, since Kate and Garrett were too late. I already calculated. If we play it right, let Aro have his drama and ceremony that he loves, there's over a seventy-nine percent chance things will end arguably favorably."
That's only a C, I thought, making Edward chuckle. "Perhaps, Gunner, but it's a majority we can invest in. Our grade might even improve once Carlisle can join the discussion."
"Best case scenario," Leah interjected, slipping her hand into mine, "what did that look like?"
"Jasper and Maisie—not to mention the rest of us—get to keep our heads. But…" Alice let the rest of her sentence hang. She didn't need to put it into words. Leah's face clouded over, and I could feel the tremor of her anger where our palms clasped together.
"They would force her?"
"Maisie's humanity is our only bargaining chip. It's also the Volturi's price…if we are able to obtain that outcome. The chances would be considerably higher if we could get Sam and the rest of the pack to agree. I can't see any shapeshifters in my visions, so I operated under the assumption that Sam wouldn't allow for an exception to the treaty rules, since I couldn't definitely predict his answer."
I felt weird having this conversation without Maisie, especially since she was in the house but not in the living room with us.
"She can hear, don't worry," Edward mumbled to me. He had left Jasmine beside Emmett on the couch, pacing close to the stairs. Every now and then, he would mutter something under his breath. A one-sided conversation with Jasper, maybe?
The fact that Maisie could hear our conversation—a side effect of the venom already in her system and her blood diet—didn't really make me feel better.
"I can't even guarantee that," Leah admitted. I squeezed her hand in mine, a reminder to calm down. She took a deep, shaking breath, followed by another. And another. After five breathes, the tremor in her hand stilled.
"I know," Alice lamented. "The seventy-nine percent we stand at currently is the best I do until we have an answer from Sam."
"But what do we do?" I asked. I expected Edward or Alice to answer, but to my surprise, it was Jasper's voice I heard.
"You and Leah make a plea to Sam." His voice made me jump again. When I turned, he was standing at the foot of the stairs, alone. Where was Maisie? "We'll work more on that aspect once we have an answer. In the meantime, largely, we do nothing. Irina is likely telling her story as we speak. What were the chances of the Volturi dispatching anyone to Forks, Ali?"
"None. In every variable I searched, Aro sends a written summons."
Jasper nodded, one quick, curt movement. I had never seen him this way, his jaw so tense and his brow heavy over blazing golden eyes. "We wait for the summons, then. Knowing Aro, he'll request Maisie and I go alone, and we will. As Ali said, there's a high likelihood everything will end in a reasonably peaceful resolution."
"He's taking this choice from her," Rosalie practically spat the words. I realized, then, that her anger wasn't at Maisie but for her. She was the most standoffish of the family, her icy stare never really showing true feelings, but here she was defending my sister.
"But he's giving her all our lives in return," Jasper reminded her. "I think we all know how Maisie will make that choice."
I found out later that Jasper, at Maisie's request, had manipulated her mood enough to make her go to sleep. Her excuse for returning so late from the Cullens' was a nap, blaming it on jetlag from the South America trip.
"I knew this would happen," Mom tutted around Maisie where she sat at the kitchen table. "It always takes you weeks to get over the time changes."
Maisie took a bite of her roast, chewing it slowly. All of her movements seemed too slow. It backed up her lie, but it made me worried.
"I'm going to Leah's after dinner," I said, desperate, for Maisie's sake, to get our parents attention off her. That one sentence was all it took, both Mom and Dad turning their eyes to me.
"You gonna start paying Sue and Charlie rent?" Dad cracked, winking at me. His joke only served to annoy Mom.
"You've gone over every night this week. I'm sure she'll be visiting with you and staying with you all the time once your semester starts. I want you home tomorrow night, Gunner. You need to spend time with your sisters, too. Maisie's going back to Alaska in just two weeks."
"Yes, ma'am."
There was no point in trying to argue with Mom. Plus, it made Ava smile. I was sure she was only happy about spending time with me because it meant uninterrupted bullying on her part, but still. Me and Maisie could use some joy, even if it came at my expense. And I wasn't going to leave Leah alone to argue with Sam. Forfeiting my pride to a seven-year-old was a small price to pay to back Leah up.
My pride, I decided later, was worth it's weight in gold to be sitting in the Clearwaters' garage at Leah's side. She had insisted that Sam come to her house, not wanting to sit around in the house he shared with Emily—not only Sam's fiancée, but also Leah's cousin. I couldn't blame her for that. There were still some heart feelings all around for the misfortune of Sam imprinting on Leah's cousin when Leah and Sam used to date.
But I was the one who insisted on the garage. The kitchen made more sense as a meeting place, probably, but I hated being in the Clearwaters' kitchen. I knew it was psychological, but my wrist always ached when I was in there, the scar left by Maria's venom making itself annoyingly present. I didn't like to think of that night. Not the venom burning in my blood, or Maisie's frenzied bravery and desperation. That kitchen was where it happened, another unfortunate twist of fate, given all the time I spent at Leah's house.
Sam leaned against a workbench, a leftover relic from Leah's father's life. With his arms crossed over his chest, Sam's muscles strained against the constraint of his t-shirt. "Is Maisie okay?"
"She's fine." I didn't want to give a detailed report about what a toll the stress had taken on her. "Jasper already has a plan. Carlisle approved it."
I wasn't going to give him any more information about the plan in question, either. I knew that as soon as Leah laid it out, Sam would start arguing.
"I'm gonna lay the stakes out first, because I know how much you'll hate the rest of what I have to tell you. Think of the pack, Sam. All the boys. Our elders. Emily, Gunner, all the imprints. Bella, because Jake's an idiot. Just think about all the people you know who have heard the truth about vampires, okay?"
"Just tell me what you're getting at, Lee-Lee."
Leah huffed her breath. She hated when Sam pulled out that old nickname for her as much as I did. "Think about all of them dead. All of us. Wiped out."
Sam cut his eyes at me, annoyed with the interruption. "We have the numbers to take out the Cullens if they break the treaty."
"We're not talking about the Cullens as a threat here. There's other vampires in the world, Sam, and we've been really lucky with our success rate. I'll give you that. Maisie didn't run out of your house because she's afraid of the Cullens. She's afraid of that stupid vampire that was hanging around our borders during the spring."
"The one we couldn't catch? She hasn't been back in months. What's she doing, trying to build an army like the last one?"
"Listen, you'll have to go to Carlisle if you want stats on these guys, but there's leaders in the vampire world. They don't really take kindly to humans knowing about them. Maisie, Gunner, Emily, Bella, all the others… the would die at the hands of these vampire leaders. The Cullens would be sentenced to death, for revealing the secret to Maisie. Our pack doesn't follow vampire laws, but do you think that will matter to them? You're an idiot if you don't see the danger here, Sam."
As he listened, Sam's face crumpled in on itself in his annoyance and anger. "So what, this vampire is going to go to their leaders and tattle? We haven't done anything wrong. We have a right to protect our land and our people."
"Irina already has gone to Volturi. Carlisle is waiting on a summons from them."
"Yeah, Carlisle. Because this is his problem."
"You would sacrifice my sister in this?" I couldn't hit Sam, I knew that. I would never be strong enough to take him on, but that didn't mean anger was off the table. I knew I was yelling at him, but I didn't care, not even when Leah laid her hand on my arm in warning. "That's bullshit coming from you. Protecting humans is the whole point of your pack."
I saw him begin to shake, my words setting him toward the edge. "Did I say Maisie wouldn't have our protection?"
"If you think she would just sit by and let the Cullens die, you're an idiot." Leah's hand gripped my arm, telling me silently to stop.
"There's a way to stop it all," Leah interjected. "But you won't like it."
I was reminded, then, that Sam and Leah really did know each other well. His fingers twitched along his bicep where his arms were crossed, dark gaze examining Leah. "No."
"Sam."
"I'm not breaking a treaty that has stood for nearly a hundred years."
Leah threw her hands up in exasperation. "Do you think that will stop Maisie, though? With everything that is on the line? She's fought vampires for this same thing. Alice has already seen it in her future visions. Either Maisie becomes a vampire, or there goes everyone's lives. You can't tell me you wouldn't make the same decision if you were in her place."
"I'm not in her place. I have the elders to answer to. I have the pack to think about, and everyone connected to them. The answer is no. There's no exceptions."
With that, the pack leader turned tail to walk back through the garage door. This conversation was over, at least according to him. I made a move to follow after Sam before Leah's shaking arm held me back.
"He's not worth it," she told me through gritted teeth. The dark red splotches staining Leah's cheeks echoed her barely contained anger.
I was pissed, too. There was nothing I would have liked better than punching Sam in his stupid face. I looked at the door he had slammed behind him again, but when I looked back at Leah, I realized there were tears running down her cheeks.
She was hurt and scared by this, too. But I was an idiot, only thinking about Maisie. Leah loved my sister, too. It was dangerous to be around a shapeshifter when they were this emotional. All the scars on Emily Young's face were proof of that. The thing was, I didn't care.
Leah was shaking even as I pulled her into my arms. She rested her head on my shoulder, curling into my chest as I held her. Hot tears soaked into my shirt, giving meaning to the anger and hurt and sadness she couldn't put into words.
"I know," I told her, running my fingers through her short, silky hair. There was nothing else I could say. No words of comfort could be used in this situation. Eventually, her shakes calmed to shivers before petering out entirely.
