-GUNNER-
Was it terrible of me to be relieved to move to Seattle? To be away from Forks? A place where two vampires—Carlisle and Esme—still remained, and a whole pack of werewolves?
A place where I had been in two fights with vampires. A place where my older sister had nearly died multiple times.
Seattle was not so very far from Forks, but it was far enough for a fresh start away from the craziness that had infected the tail end of my high school career.
Though I did take one of those werewolves with me, at least for the weekends.
"Hey, man, it's Thursday." Derrick chucked the controller to me as I walked in the door. On Thursdays, after my last class, Maisie would get online and we would play video games together. It was almost like how we used to play in high school, but now Maisie couldn't kick me off the couch if she lost.
"It's really cool how you can keep up with calendars but can't find a date of your own." That time Derrick chucked his empty soda can. I caught it before it could ricochet off my face.
"You're so damn funny," Derrick grumbled. I couldn't help it. Every weekend, just about, he conned me and Leah into going to some house party or another with him. And every weekend, he tried to bag some girl or another. And every weekend, he failed.
Derrick stayed in the living room of our apartment while I logged on, pulling some history homework out of his bag. I didn't care that he was there, but it meant that me and Maisie would have to talk in codes again. Sometimes Derrick went to the library or to the gym and we could say whatever we wanted. That Thursday would not be so.
"Hey, Gunner," my sister's voice came over the headset. Derrick didn't like to be excluded in conversation, I knew that. I switched the audio so he could hear, too. "Derrick there?"
"Yeah," Derrick answered for me. "How's Alaska, Maisie?"
"Cold, as always. How's Seattle?"
"Raining," we said at the same time, making Maisie laugh.
"Did you and Jasper get that, uh, weekend trip planned out?" Did you get your plane tickets for Italy?
"Yeah," Maisie was taking her time running through Mortal Kombat characters like she wasn't going to pick Sonya Blade. She always picked characters that looked like her when she could. That's why she always played Mario Kart as Princess Peach. "We're leaving on a Friday. October 9th."
"And coming back that Sunday?" I hoped like hell.
"That's the plan."
But would it work out that way? Alice's visions had varied wildly on the subject. Because Derrick was with us, we lapsed into our rounds with no other mention of the trip. Only jabs left our lips, and the occasional commentary from Derrick.
When we got off hours later and I was holed up in my room doing my own homework, I could hardly focus. I was sure Maisie was having the same thoughts, but that did nothing to soothe my racing mind. Even if Maisie did come back from Italy alive, would she still be human? Or would she be a vampire?
And if she did come back a vampire… I wasn't ready for that. We had a whole cover story, of course.
Should things go well ('well' meaning that Maisie came back with her humanity in tact) in Italy, this little 'weekend trip to Canada' would simply end with Maisie and Jasper becoming engaged (like they weren't practically married as is already, the way they mooned over each other). Solidifying an engagement was Step One of the easier to pull of the Maisie Disappearance Plan. This plan came about to account for Maisie's eventual turn to a vampire, because there was no way not to avoid that.
Everyone had accepted this except for Maisie at this point.
Step Two of the Maisie Disappearance Plan involved marrying Jasper. Step Three was going on honeymoon somewhere overseas. Step Four was neither Maisie nor Jasper returning from said honeymoon.
However, if Maisie was forced to turn while in Italy… well, then, we just had to cut out Steps One through Three and jump straight to Step Four with a small edit: Maisie and Jasper never return from Canada.
The Maisie Disappearance Plan A was made with the possibly stupid hope that Maisie would be able to give some form of closure and get a final goodbye before faking her death. Either of the plans were going to be traumatic for our parents and Ava, but I could see where Maisie was coming from.
I would be lying if I didn't say that I was hoping like hell for Plan A myself.
Leah stayed with me just about every weekend, making the drive from Forks to Seattle on Friday afternoons and heading back on Monday mornings. That is, when I wasn't doing the opposite. She took weekday patrol duty with the pack to swing it, which worked out pretty well considering most of the wolf pack members were still in high school. I guess I was kind of lucky that Maisie had to face the Volturi over the weekend, because it meant Leah could be there with me.
"Have they landed yet?" Leah asked. Maisie had promised that she would text as soon as they were in Italy.
"She hasn't said." I had only been checking my phone every other minute, not wanting to miss Maisie's text. Leah sighed next to me. We were lying in bed, but I wouldn't say either of us were getting any rest.
Derrick's jealousy had shown earlier that day when I told him me and Leah were going to have a weekend in and wouldn't be going to parties with him. As far as he was concerned, Leah and I were having crazy sex while we 'abandoned him'. He couldn't be farther than the truth.
It was true that we were wearing minimal clothing—only our underwear, honestly—but that had so little to do with intimacy at the moment. Leah simply ran too hot for clothes or blankets if we were cuddled up, and I had clothes next to my bed because I had promised Derrick we would interrupt all the wild sex he was sure we were having to pick him up later if he needed us to.
Leah sighed, her breath nearly as hot as her skin when it washed over my neck. "I hate waiting."
"Yeah," I agreed, running my fingers through her short hair. I was sure Leah could feel how tense I was despite the soothing warmth of her bare skin on mine. Usually Leah's heat and the weight of her against me were comforting things, but that day it wasn't enough. I hated the idea of shirking her off just as much, though, so instead I pulled her closer. "Do you… do you think you could just, like, talk to me? To pass some time?"
"About anything particular?"
"No, just whatever. Just so it's not quiet."
"Well…how much of a distraction do you want?" I angled my head down so I could try to see her expression, but her face was hidden in the crook of my neck.
"Um, the biggest one."
"Okay… I'm thinking about leaving the pack."
Now that I hadn't expected. I sat up beneath her, bringing Leah up with me in my shock. "No way! Why?"
It was dim in my room, only the light of the fading sunset coming in through the window. That sunlight burnished Leah's skin bronze in slats where it fell across her. One side of her hair was messy where she had been laying against me. She gave a one-shouldered shrug.
"I don't think I've ever made it a secret that it's not my favorite thing."
She had me there, but still… "What about Seth?"
"Seth is the only reason I've been in as long as I have. He loves it and always has. Everything has calmed down from when Maria and her newborns were in town. Most of the Cullens have moved off, it's just Carlisle and Esme in Forks most of the time. The vampire activity is way down and—" I cut her off there, cupping her cheek in my hand.
"Hey, you don't have to justify it. Not to me." Her face heated further under my palm, a blush burning her cheeks.
"I know," she grumbled, looking away. "But that's what I'm going to tell Sam. All of that. Not the real reason."
Oh. Maisie.
"He's still stuck on the Cullens upholding the treaty, even in this case, huh?" I knew Sam. I knew he wouldn't make the concession. Still, it made my chest feel simultaneously heavy and hollow to watch Leah nod. All Maisie had asked for in any of this was for Jasper to be the one to turn her.
But just because Sam had put his foot down did not mean my stubborn, impulsive sister would listen.
"You don't have to do this for her, you know." I meant it. I loved my sister, but so much of my life for the past three years had been shaped by her antics. There was no reason for Leah's to be the same. Leah dropped her gaze, teeth worrying over her bottom lip.
"I want to," she insisted. "Maisie has been my family in a way the pack never has been. Never will be, except for Seth."
Her exclusion of Sam was obvious. The hurt still ran deep there, neglecting the marital relation he would have to Leah once he and Emily were married. The hurt was reflected in the slight shake of her hands, of the breath she gulped down before continuing.
"If there's anything I've learned from life so far—from everything with Sam and Emily, losing my dad, phasing, the wolf pack, Maisie—is how important choice is. We don't get to choose so much of our lives, so when the opportunity rises to make a choice, you have to take it. Or make the opportunity yourself." She smiled here, both sad and rueful. "I doubt Sam would ever extend this option for me willingly, but that doesn't mean I won't take it. The plain fact is that I choose you, Gunner, and I know you well enough to know that choosing you means choosing Maisie, too."
When she laid it bare like that…I was surprised by the prick of tears behind my eyes. There are things that no one wants to admit to themselves, and one of mine had been the possibility of a brawl between the Quileute wolves and the Cullens. My sister, who I had spent all eighteen years of my life with, and Leah, the girl I would spend the rest of my life with, pitted against each other.
"Well, damn," Leah began to tease, running her thumb below my eye when a tear fell over. "I didn't mean to make you—"
Cry, she would have said. Hopefully she could taste the relief when I pulled her to me, sealing that word on her lips with mine. My phone screen illuminated the gathering dark of my room, but whether it was Maisie or Derrick I couldn't say. We both ignored it, wrapped up in each other as we were.
What a stroke of luck, that we were already wearing such little clothing.
I would not have survived a weekend of waiting without Leah, I am certain of that. After Maisie's initial notification that she had landed in Italy with Jasper, there was radio silence from her end. I expected that for Saturday, but when it slid into Sunday evening, I was starting to get antsy.
Derrick was sprawled on the couch in the living room. Considering neither of us owned more furniture than our bedroom stuff, we were lucky these off-campus apartments were otherwise furnished. I was not about to lose our security deposit because Derrick barfed all over that lumpy gray couch during his lingering hangover.
Even though I was kind of pissed off at him, he was a good distraction, too. "You know what's fun? Taking a shower. Let's put you in there, big guy."
"No," Derrick protested, his voice all but swallowed by couch cushions.
"Yes. It'll help your headache. Plus it will pass time 'til Leah's done cooking." She was making dinner for all of us, but the tacos were a specific request from Derrick. Hopefully he would be able to keep it down.
I lifted him off the couch, slinging his arm around my shoulder even while he complained. Getting him to the bathroom involved dragging him. It was a good thing he was about the same size as me, not some hulking mass of a guy like Emmett. I tried to sit him up on the closed toilet lid when we got in there, but Derrick let his weight slump until he was angled against the wall. Rolling my eyes, I turned the shower on.
"Can I trust you to put yourself in the shower, or should I toss you in fully dressed?"
Derrick groaned dramatically but managed to peel himself off the wall. "I'll do it."
I left him to it…so far as the other side of the bathroom door, listening for the rattle of the shower curtain before walking off. Shaking my head, I went into the kitchen, hauling myself onto the counter and watching Leah cook.
"How are you holding up?" She asked, shaking some garlic powder into the taco meat.
"Eh," I tried to sound nonchalant, "I haven't heard from Maisie in what would be a worrying amount of time, if my sister didn't make a habit of facing murderous vampires."
"Well, when you put it that way…" Leah could see right through me, I knew. Without Derrick to distract me, I started methodically popping my knuckles. I was on the sixth one before Leah threatened to hit me with the spatula she had been using to brown the meat. Leah hated when I popped my fingers, but I couldn't help it. I almost laughed as she shivered dramatically. She opened her mouth, to chew me out, I was sure, but the tinny sound of my phone ringing interrupted her.
I jumped off the counter, hauling it to my room where I had left my phone. I didn't even look at the name lighting up the screen before swiping to answer it.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Gun," came the quiet, hoarse voice from the other end of the line. My breath rattled beneath my ribs when I sighed in relief, running a hand through my hair.
My voice didn't sound any better than hers when I finally managed to force it from my throat.
"Hey, Maise."
