CHAPTER III: WHEN I SAY RUN, I MEAN WALK

"I'M AN IDIOT, DAD," I said the minute I walked through the door.

Dad was sitting on the living room couch, sifting through a leather-bound book that looked like it belonged to a medieval decade. Just seconds after I walked in, he glanced up, pushing at his reading glasses as he peered nervously over them. "Did you get rid of it?" he asked. I was sure he'd become paranoid Billy would pop out of nowhere at that moment, bearing another pair of pastel-colored bottoms as a mocking prize.

I rolled my eyes. Suddenly, I wished I had kept the pants because wow, did he really just ignore me? Pretend I didn't speak? "I did. I'm surprised you didn't keep his gift, though. I'm sure pink would look marvelous with your tan," I told him, motioning up and down my own legs for emphasis.

A look of great distaste overcame the nervous disinterest once occupying his face. "I see why you and Billy get along," he said rather drily, before turning his attention back to the leather-bound book. You see, my father worked in the reservation's archives; a perfect career for someone as quiet and studious as Dad. He also did writing on the side, but that's a story for another time, no pun intended. No one needs to know the lengthy, tedious details behind Dad's work as a novelist. He was a very smart cookie, and if I wasn't so frustrated with him two-thirds of the time, maybe I would have felt proud of the man.

I crossed my arms, and began a steady rhythm of tapping my feet. Tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap. I vowed to myself—I'd keep doing this until Dad would look up and inquire as to the look on my face. If he didn't do as wanted, maybe I'd press a sneaker-clad foot onto a sock-clad one. Armor against cloth. A war that I, the great Alissa Cameron, was destined to win.

Dad finally looked up when I got to my eighth interval of tapping. He looked annoyed, and I was sure the smug expression on my face was making his blood curdle. "Can I help you?" he asked. It came out aggravated. I wondered to myself, Do I risk his wrath, or get out while I still can?

I came to a conclusion; I wanted to vent to somebody about the sorry mess I was in, and I couldn't do it with Kallie since she was visiting a cousin this weekend, and I sure as fuck wasn't going to talk to Jared, so that left only one option (available option, if I counted Paul Lahote, the asshat); my stern, emotionless workaholic of a Dad.

I smiled, maybe a bit too wide. "Well... I need advice."

Dad was not enthused. "I'm an archivist, Alissa—not a psychologist."

"I know," I said, curling my arms behind my back. "I know, I know, I know... butttt, you are super-smart. So you definitely can give me some advice."

Dad rolled his eyes, but set his book to the side; I counted that as a win-win. "Go on."

"I accidentally made plans with Jacob and his pale-faced girlfriend—more like the Estella to his Pip, but we'll pretend they're together—and I regret it. How do you break plans when you only made the plans ten minutes ago?" I said quickly, not stopping to breathe.

There was a point of silence after that. Dad was merely staring at over his glasses, and if I had to guess, I'd say he was speechless. Partially speechless. Of course, he had to reply—it was in the code for fathers to respond to their children in their time of need, after all. "I didn't know you read," the asshole said, looking stunned—fucking stunned!

"Of course I read! I only have one friend, and she's off hanging with her family most of the time I'm awake," I said angrily.

"You do sleep a fair amount," Dad said.

"That doesn't excuse her from friendship duties," I said condescendingly. "Did you forget the rules of friendship after Billy decided he liked Quil's granddad better than you and your mopey attitude?"

Dad wasn't fazed, and I wasn't surprised. It took a lot to trigger the man's anger. I never had the pleasure of laying witness to it—not that I was disappointed, or anything. Well, maybe a little bit. He just raised an eyebrow at me. "Why did you make friends with Jacob Black? I thought you 'despised him with a fervent, skull-rattling passion.'" He made the quotation marks, which only added to the amount of self-loathing boiling in my stomach.

I shrugged and said, "He looked mad as hell when Bella offered, so I let it happen! Curse me and my stubborn, tension-loving ass!"

Dad seemed disinterested with the direction in which this conversation was going, so I really wasn't surprised when he picked up his book and started flipping through the pages again. The glass in his eyeglasses glinted off the ceiling fan's light, and when he heard no footsteps, he turned his critical, ever-so-calculating gaze onto me. "You might as well go with them," he told me. "Don't you usually jump for joy when you get the opportunity to outwit him?"

My jaw dropped. "OMG, Dad," I whispered, looking at him with a newfound fondness that the world would never see on my face again. "You're so freakin' right. I can make that asshole regret the day he ever thought to throw that mudpie at me. Thanks a bunch, Dad! You. Are. The. Best!" I swooped down to plant a firm, sloppy kiss on his stubbly cheek, then practically flounced up the stairs, so locked in my own thoughts that I barely heard my father say, "Kids these days."

Three days later, on January 23rd, I decided that I wanted to do something stupid. So stupid, in fact, that when I told Kallie about it, she called a reckless, adrenaline-addicted idiot. Well, no, that's what I told myself. Kallie didn't really have an opinion; she never did when it came to me doing stupid shit, and usually she just joined in.

I wanted to go cliff-diving.

And not just cliff-diving. I wanted to jump from the very top—not from the lower level, like all the popular kids did from Forks High and my own high school. It wasn't me being desperate to prove something—or maybe it was, and I was just in denial of it—but was just me loving the thrill that accompanied risky endeavors. This was extremely risky, but I was eager to fulfill that small part of jumping for joy when it came to doing idiot things.

Kallie had told me over the phone, "You really do have it out for yourself, don't you?" I assumed that meant she was indifferent, and was certainly not gonna risk her ass for a lowly peasant like me.

Imagine my surprise when I was huffing and putting up the hill leading to La Push's Cliff of Death, and I saw Kallie dangling her feet over the edge, scantily-clad and whistling a tune.

"Dude, what the fuck!" I gasped.

Kallie turned her head, and a whole thing of hair fell right in her eyes. She couldn't remove her hands from the edge, however, so she just left it there and cheerfully said, "Hey, Ali! You seem tired. I thought you said you army-crawl whenever you have to go up steep hills?"

I opened and closed my mouth. Wow, she really got me there. "Well, I lied," I settled for, then hastily added, "I thought you weren't coming! I woulda wore a freaking bathing suit if I thought I had someone to look nice for!"

Kallie rolled her eyes. "You mean Paul?"

"I can't believe you'd speak blasphemy at me like this," I said, feigning a look of astonishment. "I thought we had something special."

"My heart lies with only one person, and that person is not you, my love."

"That pet name says differently."

"Stop hounding shit over me, Al! It's so rude."

I cheesed, hard. "Wow, I knew you were an asshole, but a hypocrite too? Dang."

Kallie looked ready to retort, but her jaw went slack. She scowled. "You win this round, but mark my words..." She waggled a finger threateningly at my.

"Alright, alright—just get up! We gotta get this show on the round," I said demandingly, letting the excitement thrum through my fingers as I got hyped, hyped, hyped. And I held out a hand. I was suddenly grateful that Kallie was here; if she wasn't, I probably would have gotten scared and decided nope, not for me.

Kallie swung her legs around from the cliff edge, then made to get up—but the grass of the cliff was wet with the dewy residue that accompanied gloomy days, and I could only feel the horror as it swept through my bloodstream the minute she slipped—and then I was sprinting towards her. At the last second I managed to grab her around the waist, and even though it hurt my arms and legs at the resounding impact I made with the watery ground, it made it where Kallie's legs were the only part of her dangling from the edge. As the adrenaline washed through me, I could finally breathe a sigh of relief.

"Oh my god, Kallie, I just had a freaking heart attack!" I said breathily, voice like a flutter of wind as it hit the atmosphere, as I struggled to get my heartbeat and breathing under control.

From behind, before Kallie could counter with her own comment, I heard footsteps approach. And then a familiar voice. "You and me both."

Both Kallie and I turned our heads, leaning back to the point where we were nearly laying on the cold, hard grass. I looked up into the dark, stormy sky, and saw a face I wished I could wipe from memory. Of course, the asshole who witnessed our near descent into deadly terrain was Jared. Who else would it have been?

I spoke too soon, because Jared wasn't alone. He had Sam, Paul, and—wait, is that Embry? I shook my head, tried to clear my vision, but the picture was still the same. It was Embry, but his hair was cropped short and he was a lot taller and broader than I remembered. I looked between the foursome with an expression resembling that of a trapped, aggressive Yorkie. I say Yorkie because I sure as fuck wasn't a Pitbull.

"What brings you to our humble abode, a la La Push Beach?" I asked, trying, and failing, to bring the attention away from our near-death experience with my humor. It only made the boys frown harder. Or maybe it was a smile. I couldn't really tell, from my position here on the ground.

"You shouldn't be here, Alissa. And what were you trying to do? Cliff-dive? You could die from that. And you nearly fucking did! Both of you. The two of you need to go home. Now."

I furrowed my brow into a glare. Who did he think he was, scolding me? My father? He was hardly a speck of matter in orbit. "We can share the cliff," I said slowly, letting all my anger seep out, replaced by a bitter resentment it took years to build. "Or would you rather I take my chances and span the ocean?"

Jared narrowed his eyes, threateningly. "I'm your brother, Alissa. You should listen to me."

"Should is a lot different of a word to will, brother dearest, though I suppose they share the same meaning in that tiny brain of yours," I spat out. "I could hardly fucking care what you think."

I tugged Kallie up, looking at her for the first time since she nearly fell. She had an expression that almost reminded me of a beaten, terrified puppy. She huddled close to me, as though I was the only thing keeping her tied to this world, and the words I was thinking died in my mouth. I was ready to prove Jared a point by not heeding his words and jumping anyway, but I could tell Kallie was shaken by what just happened. It would be heartless of me to drag her down to the crashing waves below when all she really needed was a good action movie and triple-cheese pizza.

I turned to look at Jared. Another glare formed. "You need to keep your nose out of my business, okay? And stop pretending you care. Obviously you don't."

"Alissa, don't provoke him," Sam Uley warned, standing there beside Paul, looking as solemn as a fucking funeral moderator.

I couldn't help the near-hysterical laugh that left me. "Provoke him?" I scoffed. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. And though a part of me insisted this was Samuel Uley—the person I wished I had the courage to punch in the nose for taking Jared away from me—and there was no reason why I should comply with anything he wanted, another part, a smarter part, wasn't ready to see just what would happen if I truly did push Jared beyond his limit. So I resorted to shaking my head. "What the fuck ever. C'mon, Kallie." I gently nudged the girl forward. But she wasn't moving. I pressed a little harder. "Kallie."

Then I saw what was causing her to be immobile. And I nearly groaned in exasperation.

Embry Call was staring at her. His jaw was slackened, and he barely seemed to acknowledge the looks of surprise that his colleagues were throwing him. I tried to decode what I saw in his eyes. But I couldn't. It seemed the only person with eyes I could read so easily was Paul Lahote, and I labeled that down to him being an open book—

Wait. I saw this look once before. On Paul's face. Which meant, if I was being accurate in my observations, that Embry was feeling the same longing and regret that Paul had felt while looking at me. What the hell made the two of them have similar molds that accompanied their feelings? What the hell was going on?

I tugged a little harder on Kallie, and was satisfied when she startled. Her gaze dropped from Embry and over to me, which seemed to snap the new recruit from his own trance. When he saw the looks he was getting from all around, he retreated into himself, like he could feel the judgment.

A part of me was morbidly curious. But I'd save that dying desperation for another, much-less-intense day.

"Well, adios, mi not-so-small amigos," I farewelled, trying my hardest not to make eye-contact with Paul. Doing good, doing great, doing marvelous—fuck! I looked at him. Way to go, dumbass. "Catch ya on the flip side."

"Be safe," Jared said. If I wasn't so dead-set in feigning ignorance to my empathy, maybe I would have felt bad for the kicked-puppy look in his eyes. But again, I reminded myself—He's being an asshole. Maybe if he gives you an explanation, you can try emphasizing. But only then.

Sam gave a head-nod that I couldn't bring myself to return. He had an air to him that I was unable to place, and that made me angry.

Paul could only stare. He had the same expression he did that day in the cafeteria, one that screamed a monologue that was both endearing and frustrating to no end.

Embry was still shocked. And he was still reveling in his embarrassment. I could tell by the faint redness in his tanned-and-toned cheeks.

I looked my arm around Kallie's, using my other as a vessel for a final goodbye. And the two of us trudged far, far away—until I covered enough distance to mutter in Kallie's ear, "That was some mighty miserable eye-sex if I'd ever seen some."

Author's Note: Hey, guys! Just wanted to give a major thank-you to all you wonderful people favoriting, following, and reviewing my work!! That makes me feel all mushy and gushy inside, to tell you the truth C: I didn't want Kallie to stay on the sidelines because I luv her sm so I forced her into being a part of the supernatural world I'm sorry

Give me thoughts on whether you all would want to see either Kallie or Alissa as a supernatural character? Or do you want Alissa to shift? Would you like Alissa or Kallie to interact with the Cullens? I'd love to hear what you guys think! Another big thanks to everyone who's reviewed the last two chapters, and I hope you all will stay for the ride as we further venture into Alissa's story!

See y'all next time! :)