Chapter Thirty-Nine
Kim's Wednesday morning began very pleasantly.
A quick glance out of her bedroom window upon waking showed the snow flurries the previous night's forecast had predicted. Predictably, by the time she and Kylie were both finishing breakfast, the flurries had turned to rain and what little snow had been on the ground was now long gone. Even more predictably, shortly after this Jared showed up to drive them to school (because, as he'd been adamantly declaring since November, "Winter weather is not for walking to school in!").
"Good morning," Kim greeted with a smile, reaching up on tip-toe to kiss Jared while Kylie climbed into his truck.
"A very good morning," Jared agreed, then gestured to the still-open passenger door. "Your ride, milady."
"Why, thank you," Kim grinned before following her sister.
Their short car ride to school mainly consisted of a constant stream of chatter from Kylie right up until she clambered over Kim and hopped out of the truck when Jared pulled up in front of the elementary school. Once the door shut behind her, a wide-eyed Jared turned to look at Kim.
"I don't know how," He began slowly, "But I forget how much that kid can talk sometimes."
"Try living with her," Kim commiserated, "It's the worst."
"Although," Jared amended as he pulled into a parking spot nearer to the high school, "There are also times when all of her talking can be rather useful. For example, today I learned that there is a distinct possibility she might be spending the entire afternoon with her dad."
"Gosh, what makes you think that?" Kim questioned sardonically. "Could it perhaps be that she mentioned it just about every other sentence?"
"That is a definite possibility," Jared agreed. Then he grinned at her and Kim fought back a shiver of anticipation. She knew that look… "Of course, it's also entirely possible that I paid attention to that bit of information for my own selfish purposes. If Kylie isn't going to be home this afternoon—on a day when you would normally have to watch her because your mom always works Wednesdays—that means you're going to be all by yourself in your house. It would probably be the gentlemanly thing to do if I was to come over to…keep you company."
Now it was Kim's turn to grin at Jared. Oh yes, this conversation was going exactly where she thought it would.
"It would most definitely be the gentlemanly thing to do," Kim replied.
It probably went without saying, but Kim's school day passed by at a glacial pace.
Kim was really looking forward to her afternoon with Jared. Beyond the fact that they would be spending it together, during lunch he'd promised her that their afternoon would be completely free of anything school- and pack-related. It would be just the two of them.
Naturally, Kim was beyond excited; excited to the point of distraction, because she barely paid attention to anything that happened in any of her classes all day. (And yes, she obviously conveniently ignored the fact that if she had bothered to pay attention it may have actually made her day pass by faster.)
Unfortunately for Kim, however, if she had been paying even the slightest bit of attention to her surroundings as the bell rang to dismiss her from her last class of the day (Art, the only class she didn't have with a member of the pack), she would have noticed the boy who followed her out of the classroom. She didn't, though.
Instead, she walked out of the room and straight across the hall to her locker, eagerly anticipating Jared's imminent arrival there and oblivious to the boy watching her from across the hall, hesitating in the door of the classroom he had also just exited. In between switching out the books in her locker and backpack for everything she would need for the day's homework, Kim had a passing thought that maybe she should start meeting Jared at his locker at the end of the day, instead of the other way around, since he always got let out late anyway. Other than that, though, her thoughts were entirely focused on the coming afternoon.
Which would probably explain why she jumped and dropped her armful of textbooks and notebooks at the sound of the only vaguely familiar voice saying her name.
"Kim, we need to talk."
(For the record, Kim was very proud of herself for only dropping her books and not doing something completely ridiculous like shrieking due to her surprise.)
Her heart still racing, Kim turned to see the last person she'd expected to be there. Except that was a lie. Because for the past almost three weeks, Kim had been anxiously waiting for this moment in some shape or form. When she'd voiced her worries to Jared, he had told her she was worrying over nothing, that she was the last person anyone was likely to approach in this situation.
Well he was wrong. Because now Quil Ateara was standing in front of her and he looked determined.
Shit.
Kim's eyes widened in alarm at the same time she felt her hands begin to get clammy and her cheeks grow warm due to nerves. Shitshitshit.
"I want to know why Embry's been avoiding me and Jake," Quil pressed, clearly taking advantage of Kim's silence and the fact that she'd frozen in panic.
"He's been following Jared and Paul around like a lost puppy," Quil continued, his tone growing more heated, causing Kim's level of alarm to rise, "Except he looks miserable. And I know it's because the two of them and Sam Uley won't let him talk to us. So I want to know what's going on."
"I—I don't know," Kim managed to stutter out, avoiding his gaze as she frantically looked both ways down the hallway. But Jared was nowhere in sight.
"I'm not stupid!" Quil bit out, and Kim was starting to panic. He wasn't shaking yet. But he was already upset and this conversation definitely had the potential to make him angry enough to phase. That couldn't happen. Not here. And Kim was terrified because there was nothing she could do to stop it if things did get that far. "I've seen you hanging around with the gang since last summer. I know you're dating Jared. And I know you've been spending time with Embry. So tell me what the hell they did to him! I know you know!"
With each word Quil spoke, he seemed to subconsciously take a step closer to Kim, so that by the time he finished speaking his face was barely an inch from hers and she was backed all the way up against her still-open locker, various books and papers spread on the ground around her. She was well and truly cornered now.
Except suddenly she wasn't.
Blinking in surprise at the sudden lack of Quil in her personal space, to say that Kim was surprised by the sight before her when she straightened her hunched shoulders would be a severe understatement. Because the person who came to her rescue and pulled Quil away from her and was now standing face-to-face with him was Embry. And he looked pissed.
"Leave her alone," Embry stated harshly. "Kim doesn't have anything to do with you and me."
"What the hell, man?" Quil demanded. "She's one of them!"
By this point, although she was focused on the escalating tension between the two boys, Kim was vaguely aware that they'd begun to attract a crowd. That was bound to attract a teacher's notice any second—though whether or not that was a good thing remained to be seen. Hell, forget a teacher, where was Jared?!
"You don't know anything," Embry shot back.
"I know that you joined the La Push gang!" Quil retorted. "And now you won't have anything to do with me and Jake. Instead you spend time with people like her!"
Quil emphasized his point by jabbing his finger in Kim's direction, and she unconsciously shrunk back against her locker again.
"I told you to leave her alone," Embry bit out, and Kim didn't miss that his hands were now clenched into fists.
But apparently Quil hadn't missed that either, because before Kim knew what was happening he was swinging his own fist in Embry's direction and connecting solidly with the larger boy's face.
"What's going on here?" A new voice suddenly called out. Never before in her life had Kim been more happy to see a teacher.
In a quick succession of events, the crowd of students began to disperse, the teacher put himself in between Quil and Embry while a second teacher appeared to help bring the two boys to the office, and Jared finally appeared next to Kim.
"Are you okay?" Jared demanded, his hands coming up to cup her face. "I got here just before Quil threw that punch. He didn't touch you, did he? I'm gonna kill him if he did."
"I'm fine," Kim reassured him, raising her own hands to wrap them around Jared's wrists. "He got in my face a bit…he wanted to know what happened to Embry," She said with a sigh and Jared's face immediately hardened. "I'm fine, though," She repeated. "Embry showed up and he defended me. I swear everything is fine."
Jared stared at her unblinkingly for a long moment, apparently trying to detect any bit of untruth in her statements. Finally, he sighed and the harsh expression dropped from his face. "Well, I guess that's not really grounds to kill him…but if he ever phases, I totally reserve the right to beat him up."
Kim looked at him pointedly. "Jared…"
"Fine…I'll only hit him once…for Embry."
"That won't solve anything," Kim stated. "And neither is standing here. We need to go to the office. I need to explain that Embry didn't do anything wrong; he was just defending me."
"C'mon, let's go," Jared said, dropping his hands from Kim's face, only to grab her left hand in his right. After pausing briefly to retrieve Kim's discarded books from the ground, they quickly made their way to the office.
For the record, Kim was quite pleased with herself after their trip to the office. She somehow managed to spout off a pretty believable story about how Embry had recently started volunteering around the rez with Sam, leaving him far less time to spend with his friends, and that's why Quil had confronted her, with Embry stepping in when he happened to pass by and notice how tense her conversation with Quil was. Embry was still going to have detention after school for the next day because, no matter his intentions, he'd been involved in a fight on school grounds.
That was barely a slap on the wrist compared to Quil, though. When Kim, Jared, and Embry left the office after barely twenty minutes, Quil was in the middle of being read the riot act by the principal. He was going to be suspended for the rest of the week, and Kim was sure there would be further punishment waiting for him at home.
"We're going to need to go talk to Sam," Jared announced as the trio walked out of the school. "This is something he needs to know about."
This was unsurprising to Kim, and Embry also looked resigned.
Also unsurprisingly, Sam was less than pleased by this new development.
"This can't happen again," Sam decreed, the dead seriousness in his voice giving away his true level of anger. "I don't like how close that was. Quil acted out of frustration, but if he got angry enough…"
Sam trailed off with a shake of his head, but his meaning was clear enough to Kim. If Quil got angry enough, then he would phase; as a direct descendent of the last pack, there was no maybe about it. And if Quil phased, the last place he should be was in a crowded school.
"That being said," Sam continued after a moment, redirecting most of his attention to focus on Embry, "I think you did a good job today. You defended Kim and you kept your shit together."
Although the praise was well-deserved—again, phasing in a crowded school hallway was likely to accomplish the exact opposite of their purpose—it clearly wasn't what Embry wanted to hear right then. Because rather than accept the praise, Embry clenched his fist so suddenly and tightly that the half-full glass of water he was holding shattered in his grip. Before all of the glass even settled on the floor, Embry had stormed out of the house.
The remaining occupants of the kitchen were all silenced by their shock for a moment before Emily finally spoke up for the first time since greeting everyone upon their arrival earlier.
"That was the most insensitive thing I've ever heard you say," She berated her fiancé.
Kim was definitely inclined to agree with her, but if Sam's confused frown was anything to go by, he definitely wasn't following.
Jared had wrapped his arms around Kim earlier while she and Embry related the events of the afternoon to Sam and Emily (chances were, in Kim's opinion, Paul was still clueless about the whole thing since he'd been on patrol since school let out),and she turned in his embrace now so that she could make eye contact with him while Emily laid into Sam about just why he was so insensitive.
"I need to go talk to Embry," Kim informed him and, predictably, Jared frowned.
"I don't know if that's the best idea," he admitted, "Embry was pretty upset; he probably phased as soon as he got outside."
"Then I'll come back inside," She told him easily. However… "But I really don't think he did. He needs to talk to someone, Jare. And I've decided that someone is going to be me."
They engaged in a silent stare-down for a long moment, before finally Jared's gaze wavered, just as Kim knew it eventually would (alright, so maybe she'd learned a few tricks along the way to use their imprint bond to her advantage…but only when the situation called for it).
"You get as far away as possible if he shows the slightest sign of phasing," Jared stated.
"No arguments here," Kim replied, kissing him lightly on the cheek, and then ducking out of his embrace to follow Embry's path out of the house.
Kim was unsurprised to find Embry almost immediately upon stepping outside. He sat on the porch steps, with his face in his hands and his elbows resting on his knees. She also couldn't help but note that he wasn't shaking in the slightest—after all, phasing now meant letting loose everything he'd been keeping bottled up. Without a word, she took a seat in the remaining space beside him.
"I think Sam is an asshole sometimes," Kim told him conversationally.
Because she angled herself in such a way that she was facing Embry when she sat down, she easily caught his surprised expression when he jerked his head out of his hands to look at her.
Kim could tell Embry was surprised that she was the one sitting beside him—that she was the one who followed him after he stormed out of the house upset. And his surprise made sense. For all that they'd interacted with each other over the past couple of weeks, they'd never actually talked to each other so far. Personally, Kim blamed the lingering social anxiety that still liked to flare up every so often whenever she interacted with anyone outside of her usual circle. No matter, though, because they were definitely going to talk now.
Of course, Kim was willing to bet the surprise on Embry's face was also due to what she'd actually said to him.
"You can't tell me you haven't thought that before," Kim continued with a raised brow. "Like, say, maybe a few minutes ago?"
"He has a lot of responsibilities as Alpha," Embry replied slowly. "But yeah…sometimes he is."
"I think it's because he has all of those Alpha-related responsibilities," Kim stated. "In his position, being mature and taking things seriously is important, but sometimes he takes them a little too seriously. Even when he tries to loosen up a bit and give praise where it's due...it doesn't always come across the right way because he puts so little emotion into it. He makes it seem like he doesn't really care beyond the fact that people do what's expected of them."
"The tribe's safety is the number one priority," Embry recited.
"And that's a good thing," Kim agreed, "But it sucks that a responsibility like that comes at the price of keeping it all a secret."
"Quil and Jake are the closest thing I have to family, other than my mom," the words practically spilled out of Embry. And, although her intentions had been to come out here to talk to Embry about all of this, Kim was kind of surprised by how little time it took to get him to open up, especially since just a few minutes ago he held it together enough to not phase and share everything in the pack mind. "We've stuck together through everything; Quil's dad dying, then Jake's mom, when Jake's sisters left…I've had their backs through all of the hard stuff, and they've had mine whenever I needed them…but now I'm not allowed to talk to them because Sam thinks it's safer this way. Well look at what happened today! All of this secret keeping is the reason Quil got so confrontational today. And don't even get me started on the fact that the only reason I'm in the middle of this stupid secret is because my mom's been lying to me my whole life and chances are pretty good Quil or Jake actually are family to me."
Kim frowned thoughtfully at him. He needed a distraction, and she could definitely relate to him on some level. Well, it couldn't hurt…
"I don't know who my dad is either," she told him. She didn't actually know if he knew that already or not. Jared knew, but he was conscientious enough to not think of that in the pack mind. And Paul more than likely knew, too, but again, it wasn't something she could see him dwelling on. Hell, for all she knew, the whole pack knew but were just too polite to bring it up in front of her. "Honestly, I've always been kind of surprised that neither of our moms have used being single moms as an excuse to be friends with each other, but that's not really the point I'm trying to make here."
By the time she finished speaking, Embry was frowning at Kim. "I thought Paul…"
"Paul is my sister's brother," Kim said with a self-deprecating shrug, "But he isn't mine. So I'd say both of our situations pretty much suck."
Embry sighed and ran a hand over his face wearily. "I think I need to try harder."
Kim easily caught on to what he was trying to say. "No one blames you for being upset by all of this. If anything, we're sympathetic. You deserve to be angry that you aren't allowed to talk to your friends anymore."
"I'm still going to try harder," Embry said resolutely. "It's what the rest of you deserve after having to put up with me for the past few weeks. No matter how frustrated I am with the whole situation, I don't actually hate being a part of this pack."
"Well I'm glad to hear that," Kim told him with a smile, "Because you're definitely stuck with us."
a/n—Well this story is officially my longest work. I actually noticed how long Friendship on Fire has gotten last chapter when it surpassed my only other in-progress story (something I potentially haven't updated since early 2013…but in the off-chance anyone here reads that, I'm working on it. Promise!), but now the word count has crept even higher with this chapter.
I just want to take a moment to thank everyone who has read, reviewed, or favorited this story over the past 88,000+ words. I'm really glad people have liked it, and I'm actually quite proud that this story has gotten as far as it has. When I first started writing this, I was pretty sure I could stretch the plot out to 15 chapters, then I figured it could be wrapped up in 20, and then suddenly that number shot up to 35. Clearly FoF is now longer than all of those guesstimates and I can tell you now that it won't be ending at Chapter 43 like I thought it would several chapters ago (Honestly, I've stopped trying to put a limit on it by now). Long story short: this story is long and I'm glad people like it!