Chapter Forty-Three

After learning that Jake managed to see Bella Swan despite being told not to, Kim found herself unsurprised to learn just a few hours later that Jake had also managed to somehow get around Sam's order not to tell Bella about the wolf pack—kind of disappointed in him, sure, but not surprised. While Jared was understandably frustrated by the whole situation, it simply made Kim even more curious about a girl who could instill such strong feelings in Jake that he would figure out how to circumvent a direct order. Now she really wanted to meet the girl for herself.

It was not to be.

After a night spent happily in Jared's arms, Kim was up early the next morning to head to her grandma's. And while she did keep her promise (beyond surprisingly—her grandma's phone service was sketchy at best) and called Jared every night, her grandma kept them all occupied just enough during the day to not give Kim any free time to dwell more on pack matters. And by the time she got home on Sunday—eight hours later than expected, thanks to her mom picking up an extra shift at work—the only thing she had time to do was collapse into bed exhausted from her week away.

The next morning, Kim woke up with the sun, more than a little eager to get to school so that she could finally see Jared—who had warned her he had to patrol all night and wouldn't get to welcome her home—after what felt like the longest (and oh, okay, it was kind of fun, too…) week of her life. The next hour could not pass quickly enough.

Needless to say, that meant that when she walked into the kitchen only to find none other than Jared seated at the table, she was understandably surprised. And beyond excited.

"Jared!" Kim effectively launched herself across the small room and directly into Jared's widespread arms.

The way Jared quickly pulled Kim into his lap and enfolded her into his embrace left Kim with little doubt he'd missed her just as much during their week apart—not that she'd given him much chance to react differently, even with his supernaturally-enhanced senses.

"This is certainly a surprise," Kim said, now happily seated on Jared's lap with his arms loosely wrapped around her.

"I'm upset we even had to wait this long," Jared replied. "Sometimes I think Sam is a dick on purpose when he assigns patrols."

"Well you're here now, so that's what matters," Kim stated diplomatically. "And we'll have all day together…well…kind of…minus all of those classes we don't have together."

"Yeah, about that…" Kim did not like the sudden change in Jared's tone. This was only enhanced when he continued, "I'm not actually going to be in school today."

He paused and Kim took the opportunity to narrow her eyes at him. "Either you're being uncharacteristically reasonable and taking the day to catch up on some clearly-needed sleep after patrolling all night…or, you've been withholding some vital information during all of our conversations in the past week."

Jared rubbed a hand over his face, throwing into sharp relief the weariness Kim had only registered briefly in passing upon first spotting him.

"I didn't want you to worry while you were out of town," Jared stated.

If anything that only increased the hint of worry Kim had been feeling. If whatever was clearly going on with the pack right now was serious enough that Jared would be so concerned that Kim would actually worry…well, that was even more worrying to her.

"That reasoning is the exact opposite of comforting," Kim informed him. "What's up?"

Jared sighed. "It's that redhead leech I told you about before," he admitted. "She's shown up a few more times in the past week and we've been nowhere close to catching her."

"Has she hurt anyone?" Kim frowned.

"A few hikers are dead," Jared admitted, his resignation clear, "But no one actually on the rez or in Forks. Everyone is blaming wild bears for the attacks."

"If she has already…" Kim hesitated, then continued with a grimace, "…fed, then why is she still hanging around? You'd think she'd realize the chances of you guys catching her eventually."

"We thought it was because she was out for revenge after we killed her mate—you remember the leech with dreads we got?" Jared explained. "That's what all of the legends have led us to believe: that the loss of their mate puts them into an uncontrollable rage."

"But it didn't?" Now Kim was confused.

"Oh, it did. We just weren't the ones who killed her mate; she's not after us," Jared told her. "Apparently Bella Swan's Cullen boyfriend killed her mate last year, so now the redhead is after her."

"Does she not know the Cullens are long gone?" Kim questioned.

"She doesn't care," Jared scoffed. "And meanwhile, thousands of people are in danger, not to mention Bella, who we can only fully protect as long as she stays on our land—she's basically spending her Spring Break splitting her time between the Blacks' house and Sam and Emily's."

Jared sighed again, simultaneously tightening his grip on Kim. It was unfair, Kim contemplated to herself as she took in the noticeable dark circles under Jared's eyes and the stiff set of his shoulders, that the pack members had to be burdened with such a huge responsibility. Yes, it was also a huge honor in the eyes of the tribe—those members who were in the know, at least. And yes, she highly doubted most of the boys saw their supernatural abilities as a burden on most days. But that didn't change the fact it was a weight most teenagers would never have to bear. It wasn't fair.

Well, Kim, for one, was determined to make things as easy on Jared as she could.

"What do you need from me?" Kim asked, lifting a hand to cup Jared's cheek. At the contact, Jared looked up to meet her gaze. "What can I do for you?"

"I'm driving you to school," Jared said immediately. "And home. Every day. Until we take care of the bloodsucker." He paused, his expression turning contemplative. "I don't know how often I'll be able to actually make it to school, but a pack member will always be there. I'd really appreciate it if you just didn't go outside without me. I…if the leech somehow slipped past us and got all the way into town and there was even a chance you could be in danger…"

Kim increased the pressure of her hand on his face when she felt Jared's hands on her begin to tremble. As she knew it would, her touch immediately grounded him and he refocused on her.

"I trust you to keep me safe," She told him firmly. "What else?"

Jared visibly hesitated. Then, "Don't go visit Emily. I know it's selfish of me to ask that, and Sam clearly thinks Emily will be safe enough even with Bella hanging around, but—I just—I don't want—"

"I won't," Kim interrupted. "If the pack is so busy right now then I'm sure Paul won't be around, and I already knew Mr. Lahote was going to be out of town this week, so I'll have Kylie to watch after. We'll stay in, I promise. No side trips to the beach, or anything."

"Thank you," Jared breathed out, before further expressing his clear gratitude by sealing his lips to hers.

Kim was just getting fully into the kiss when Jared suddenly broke away.

"Kylie's coming," he murmured when Kim pouted at him.

"She is a mood killer," Kim agreed, reluctantly slipping off Jared's lap. Her attention no longer completely focused on her (completely hot in a completely distracting way) boyfriend, Kim could just make out the sound of the water running in the bathroom. "Do you want some breakfast?"

"Always," Jared replied instantly.

With a fond roll of her eyes, Kim made to go peruse the pantry for ingredients for a Jared-sized meal, when he spoke again.

"Oh hey," he said, "I almost forgot: Emily asked me to pass this along to you."

Kim looked over to see Jared holding out a square white envelope that had Kim's name written across the front in Emily's impeccable penmanship.

"It's a Save-the-Date…thing," Jared told her. "Em and Sam finally picked a wedding date."

Kim grinned as she accepted the envelope and immediately opened it to read what was inside.

"That was a decision that only took three months to make," she commented. "So, next winter, then. Say, do you want to be my date?" She asked teasingly.

"Um, duh," Jared stated the obvious. "Besides, Emily didn't give me any fancy pre-invitation. Clearly you're going to have to be my in if I want to go."

"Glad I could help you out with that," Kim commented, slipping the Save-the-Date card back into its envelope as her attention shifted back to the most pressing matter currently on hand: breakfast. "You know…if you're driving us to school, that definitely gives us more time for breakfast."

Jared's eyes immediately lit up. "So…waffles?"

Over the next few days, as promised, Jared showed up every morning to drive Kim and Kylie to school and was always waiting by her locker when the last class of the day let out. He even managed to get in one full day of attending his own classes, plus a few random individual classes here and there. He did not, however, have any free time outside of school hours to spend time with Kim.

And so that was why, when someone knocked on the front door Thursday night, she hesitated before opening it.

It was late enough that Kylie was already in bed and Kim was in her pajamas and slowly making her way to bed, too—not quite late enough for their mom to be home from her closing shift at the diner, but definitely past the acceptable time of day for social calls. Immediately, her mind jumped to the worst possible conclusion: vampire. But then rational thought kicked in and she reasoned that a supernatural creature with superhuman strength and speed was hardly likely to knock on the front door. It was probably a human on the other side of the door. But Kim wasn't expecting anyone…

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Well clearly whoever it was wasn't going away until she answered. Maybe her mom got off work early and had misplaced her keys again—that was not a rare occurrence in the Connweller household.

Decided, Kim made her way to the front door and pulled it open.

"Jared?" She questioned in complete surprise. "I wasn't expecting you!" Then, when he didn't immediately respond, she took a closer look at him in the flickering yellow light the old porch light offered. His eyes were red-rimmed, almost as if he'd been…crying? "What's wrong, Jared?"

"Harry Clearwater is dead."