chapter 3

I think my mom always had this weird thing where she hoped that someday, against all odds, Quil and I would get married. She first developed this fantasy when we were born around the same time, and the idea of her daughter marrying the son of her best friend because her biggest dream. She arranged for us tot have play dates almost daily, bringing us to the zoo or the park and making us pose for pictures (many of which are still hanging up on our fridge). But when we were old enough to start developing opinions of our own and start hanging out with people other than our mom's friend's kids, we stopped being best friends, if we could even be considered that in the first place. By the time we had both entered middle school, Quil and I spent no time together, school or otherwise. And I think at some point through the course of our high school careers, after realizing that we never willingly spoke two words to each other, she decided, hey, maybe it will never happen, maybe I should come to terms with this.

But tonight, there was some spark in her eyes that indicated that maybe she was starting to get her hopes up again, because Quil was staring at me.

Ever since my mom opened the door and the Joy Ateara gushed about how nice the house looked, how good the food smelled, and how much older I looked, Quil had not stopped shooting looks my way. And I couldn't' figure out why, because he didn't even really do much to acknowledge my existence even before he was a member of his little group. But his gaze was intense and it was hard not to ignore the giggles of my mother, who must have thought this was the best thing to happen since sliced bread. "Remy," she said with a tone that I guess she must have thought was coy, "will you pass Quil the potaotes?"

With a glare, I took the bowl from my mother. "Did you buy these premade? They're actually edible?" I asked, shoving the bowl in front of Quil without looking back at him. He took the bowl with the grumbled, 'thank you,' and then set the bowl to the side, not taking any of the food.

"Hush," my mother warned, eyes sharp.

"This is really good, Mrs. Cree," Quil said, despite the fact that he had barely touched anything on his plate.

While my parents and Joy gossiped about the people living on this small reservation, I pushed the rotisserie chicken my mom bought forty-five minutes ago around on my plate and tried not to acknowledge the glances Quil kept giving me. It was a little unnerving, and brought back to my memory the gaze of the wolf in the clearing. Between the hotheaded Jared and Quil's new creepy behavior, I wasn't sure if I liked whatever their little cult was doing to them.

"Did you hear that, Remy?" my dad asked, and I jumped at the sound of his voice. Him, my mom, and Joy were all staring at my expectantly. I shook my head.

Joy smiled. Joy was aptly named; everything about her was warm and inviting. I distinctly remember my favorite part of my play dates with Quil being Joy, and spending time with her and eating her food. She was a single mother, but still probably the best mother I could think of. Not that I didn't love my own mom, but Joy got her beat in terms of motherly qualities and housewife skills. "I heard you were looking for a job. I have friends who own a bakery, by the high school in Forks. Would you be interested in that?"

I beamed. "Yeah, definitely. The job search hasn't been going too well, lately. That'd be really great."

And then, Joy's tone changed. "Great! Quil worked there up until recently, but ever since he quit, they've had a hard time filling his spot. Right, Quil?"

The boy next to me groaned. "Mom, I told you, I don't have time anymore. Besides, Rem probably needs the job more than me." He leaned in closer to me and said, quieter, "You're welcome, by the way."

"Yeah, thanks," I mumbled, half sincere and half begrudgingly.

"I'll leave you their number tonight. Don't let me forget! I'll put in a good word for you. Oh, they're gonna be so happy. They've been looking for someone for ages but it's so hard to find someone good nowadays."

This jump started a conversation about the tragic state of youth culture and how absolutely devastating it was to see the teens of this generation act in such a degrading way. I was halfway tempted to get the photo of my father as an eighties punk with liberty spikes, but I kept that thought to myself.

"So," Quil said, slowly dragging out the word and eliminating the possibility of me ignoring him for the night. I stared back at him, waiting for him to elaborate somehow. "How's uh, school been?"

"You're gonna ask me about school right now?"

He furrowed his eyebrows. "Um, yeah, I guess."

I scoffed, and looked back down at my plate. "Fine, I guess."

There was a thick awkwardness between the two of us. I guess, if I was better at investigating the abnormalities of Quil and his friends, I would've been pretty eager to talk to him, and I'd be bombarding him with questions. But when it came down to it, I was kind of scared of Quil and his friends, and being near them reminded me of the wolf in the clearing and the one outside my bedroom window. The similarities made the hair on my arms raise. And whenever I thought about asking Quil about the possibility of him worshiping some ancient Inuit creature, my mouth went dry.

But Quil, on the other hand, seemed to be pretty determined to have a conversation with me. This was a stark difference to his earlier visits, when he would either run off with Bear or sit in his chair without saying a word. "Do you like hiking?" he asked, sounding a little bit more confident.

'Um," I started, stabbing the chicken on my plate, "no not really." I wasn't too fan of hiking in the first place, it was more of a means to an end for me, but the incident had severely ruined the activity for me. "Not my thing. I like being inside more."

"Hmm, that's good. You probably shouldn't hike anyways," he noted.

This comment made me cock an eyebrow. "Why?"

Quil, for the first time this evening, refused to meet my gaze, instead of vice versa. "I mean, you never know what's in the woods. It's probably better to just avoid it, now." He presented this information so casually, as if this was something every person in the area should know, as if this area wasn't absolutely littered with hiking trails and wilderness supply stores.

My head was rushing with images of the wolf and the sound of the laugh and sight of my brother disappearing into the woods with a bottle of whiskey. "What do you mean? What's in the woods?"

Quil shrugged. "Like I said, you never know. I just don't think it's a good idea."

"Yeah, but what does that mean?"

Redness rushed to his cheeks, and he just laughed a little. "Nothing, Remy. It's really not that deep." Quil shoved a forkful of mashed potatoes in his mouth, and I stared at him, completely frazzled with red cheeks.

My mother seemed to be happy about this, as from the end of the table, she sent me a very not subtle wink.

I was almost late for my job interview.

It was not my fault.

My interview was at ten in the morning, and I woke up at six. Six in the morning, on a Saturday, during spring break, I was awake. Not only was I awake, but I was functioning, making a breakfast complete with eggs and toast and a lot of hot sauce. There was very little I would do this for, but I was so insanely desperate to replace both the funds in my bank account and the camera I had lost in the woods.

In the shower, I thought about what could've been on the camera. I imagined a wild looking women, with russet skin and pretty hair and teeth that were sharpened to a point. She would be on the back of one of the wolves, commanding and strong. She would be laughing that laugh when she reached out and snatched the camera from the bungee cords and crushed it against a tree. Or maybe she fed it to one of her wolves.

I couldn't imagine why they left me there. If I was right about what I saw, and I'm almost positive I was, it didn't really make much sense for them to let me live.

Or maybe, I was just insane.

I got dressed in record time, despite the contemplation of my sanity, wearing itchy clothes and uncomfortable shoes that were, as my mom said, perfect for a job interview. And though I wasn't the biggest fan of dressing like a forty-year-old single mother, I cared more about impressing the older bakery workers.

However, when I turned to back out of our driveway, I noticed something on my passenger seat. My journal.

At first I didn't think anything of it, because I was so used to seeing it and having it near me everywhere I went. But when I remembered that it had been missing for over a week and that whole time it definitely was not sitting in my car the whole time, I stepped on the breaks. I stared down at the journal, and it felt like it was staring back at me. I had been in my car dozens of times since I lost my journal, and I had practically torn my car apart at one point looking for it.

And then, I realized that the only way that journal would've made its way back into my car was if someone put it there. I reached for it quicker than I thought I possibly could.

It felt familiar in my hands, like it had never left. I liked the leather and how worn down it was. Hesitantly, I opened the book, and the pages flipped to my notes about lake monsters. "Fuck," I whispered to myself, completely in disbelief that it was back in my hands. I flipped through the pages, quickly and harshly, almost afraid that I might rip the paper, until I got to the page about Adlets.

My notes about them went on for three pages, and there were so many details and stories about them that I couldn't even remember. My heart pounded.

Frantically, I reached in my glove compartment to find a pen. I was desperate to write down all the information I had gathered before I could forget it. I pulled out a big pink marker, and flipped to a fresh page to scribble down everything I could.

And then, all my frantic motions stopped, because on my last page of notes, there was an unfamiliar handwriting. In red ink and chicken scratch, someone had written, 'you dropped this in the parking lot. cool theories. none of them are right.'

"Remy! What are you doing? Go, you're gonna be late!" my mom called, and I looked up to see her standing just a few feet from me in her bathroom. She must have seen my wide eyes and dumbstruck expression, because concern was immediately written across her face. "Are you okay?"

Still shaking, I released the break and pulled away from my home, throwing the journal in the backseat.

Hours after my interview, I sat in Bear's room.

He had been dead for a year now, and his room still remained untouched. It was the cleanest room in the house, as Bear was the only one in the family who couldn't stand any type of mess. He had posters on the wall of films he thought were indie and underrated that were actually critically acclaimed and popular (he never really listened to me when I told him liking Donnie Darko and Pulp Fiction didn't make him unique).Bear once stole a road sign that he proudly hung on his wall, and his dressers had strange little collectibles and coins and framed photos of his friends. Everything about it was untouched, and it felt like a set for a T.V show as opposed to the room of a long dead teenage boy.

No one in my family spent a lot of time in here. Occasionally, when one of us was lost in deep thought or despair, you could see the light on underneath the locked door. We all knew to give each other space when that happened.

I didn't bother turning on the lights, though, because it felt fitting to sit in the dark. Not to be so pathetically self-righteous and irritatingly metaphorical, but I really was in the dark.

My head was running around in circles, so desperate to fit together all the pieces and to make everything work, but everything was wrong.

Cool theories. None of them are right.

All those hours I had spent researching creatures and legends and convincing myself that I wasn't insane for considering these possibilities were a waste of time. All those hours I spent searching for an explanation were wasted, and I felt no closer to figuring out what killed my brother.

I mean, I still had the image of the giant neighborhood wolves and the shrill laugh that came with them, but I had no idea what they were and what they were doing.

And I had no idea who wrote it.

My first thought was Quil, as he was a cult member and had gave my weird warning about staying out of the woods and he was at my house just the night before. But I knew from sophomore year English class that Quil had big, bubbly handwriting like a thirteen year old girl, and it didn't match the small and scratchy writing in my journal. I had five other ideas as to who it could be.

I looked up at Bear's dresser and studied a picture of the two of us, when we were in middle school. I hated the photo, and practically begged him to burn it every time I saw it, but now, I appreciated it. I had cut my own hair in a desperate attempt to look more goth, because my mother wouldn't let me get it done. My bangs were choppy and my hair was burnt from the sheer amount of times I put it through the straightener. Bear had his chocolate brown hair cut in one of those godawful swishy styles that made him look like a boyband wannabe. I was pouting, and he squishing my cheeks with his hands.

We were best friends. And, even with this little setback, I was determined to name the wolf and the laugh that I knew killed him.

There were a few theories I had as to why Jared Cameron was so insistent on hating me.

Although, realistically they were all probably pretty strong reasons he hated me. And they all had to do with Kim.

The first and most compelling reason is that I was the reason they almost broke up for good. A few weeks after Jared and Kim started dating, they got into this huge blowout fight, and I was almost positive they were done for good. I didn't know what the fight was about, and Kim still never told me, but I knew it was bad enough for Kim to show up at my doorstep with mascara running down her face and snot bubbles in her nose. Naturally, I went into the kitchen, got a bottle of rum, and we had a time together. We were drinking and dancing and talking an insane amount of shit about Jared, and I think I might have drunkenly told Kim to leave Jared an extremely intense voicemail, and a fair few texts. There was one point where Kim was crying so hard that she handed me the phone, and gave me creative freedom over what I would say to him. And I can't say for sure what it was I said to him via text, posing as Kim, but knowing me, I probably told him that he would look better if he was jumping off a cliff.

And when the miraculously made up and became inseparable again, I don't think he forgot his girlfriend shouting the phrase, And Remy thinks you're a little pussy!

To be fair, I never really stopped thinking he was a pussy.

The second reason was the fact that on more than one occasion, I had threatened Jared. It didn't come from a dislike of him, but more of a distrust. Because, even though Kim was overwhelmed with pure joy over the idea of Jared paying even a little bit of attention to her, I was suspicious of his intentions. Pre-cult induction, Jared had large groups of friends and, at more than one point, multiple girlfriends. Jared was the source of drama and cat fights and was on track to win some stupid award like prom king or get voted cutest smile. He paid Kim dust.

When I approached Jared one day, while he was waiting for Kim in the parking lot, I was thinking of the many girls who cried because they thought they were his only girlfriend, and how heartbroken they were because they didn't realize how scummy he was. He didn't really pay attention to me until I said, "Hey, I know you think you've got everyone wrapped around your stupid little finger, but I know the type of person you are. And if you hurt Kim, your balls will become my new doorknocker."

I had left before he could respond, so I don't know how well he reacted. Kim chewed me out for that one, though.

And the third and most irrational reason for Jared's hatred of me, was that I was the only person he had to share Kim with.

His possessive and douchey nature had led me to believe that he wanted Kim to spend every second of her free time with him, and the fact that I had cut into that time probably really irked him, and it didn't help that I already had a little history of both threatening and insulting him.

And it's not that I didn't like Jared; I didn't really care for him either way. Before Kim, I didn't really pay too much attention to him, only knowing details of his life from Kim's gushing. But his obsessive behavior was kinda of tainting my indifferent opinion of him.

So, of course, when I pulled into Kim's driveway for our regularly scheduled hangout session, and saw Jared, flanked by both Embry Call and my dear friend Quil Ateara, I groaned. "You've got to be kidding me," I mumbled, pulling the keys out of the ignition and throwing open my car door. "Hello boys," I said, slamming the door behind me. "Nice day, isn't it?"

Jared, in typical asshole fashion, glared down at me with his arms down by his side. I wasn't surprised to see that they were all shirtless, but I was surprised to see all three of them there. "I thought I told you to stay away from Kim."

"And I thought we established that you weren't her dad," I shot back, not moving from my car. Despite my tone, my hands and legs were shaking and I was absolutely terrified, my whole body vibrating with nerves. I knew there was something going on with these three dudes, and here I was, going face to face with them. "I don't know why you think you can tell Kim what do you like you own her."

"I'm just trying to help her and make sure she's safe. And keeping her away from people like you is the best way I can do that."

I scoffed. "Keep her safe from me? I was friends with Kim when you wouldn't give her a second glance, when you had your head up your ass and slept with every girl you could sniff out."

Quil and Embry stood closely behind Jared, like they were ready to jump in at any moment. But Jared laughed a humorless laugh. "You don't know anything about me."

"I know that you're a borderline abusive, piece-of-shit, asshole."

Jared brought his lip back and, once more, snarled at me. "And your an alcoholic bum with dead drug dealing brother and I'm not gonna let you ruin Kim's life like you've ruined yours."

First, Quil stepped away from Jared and said, "Too fucking far, dude."

Second, Embry turned around and said, "Shit," like he was aware that things had officially gone too far.

Third, my legs moved before my mind could process my actions, and I marched up to Jared and slapped him in the face.

In quick motions I couldn't even process, Embry snaked an arm around my waist and dragged my away from Jared and back towards my car. Embry held onto my waist like he was afraid of what would happen if he let go, and I watched Jared's whole body tremble, as Quil struggled to drag him away towards the line of trees. "Jared, c'mon, let's not do this here bud," he said, pulling on his arm.

Jared's feet started moving first. "God fucking dammit," he said, pushing Quil off him and sprinting into the trees outside of Kim's house.

Quil looked at me with big eyes. "I'm really sorry, Remy." And with that, he ran off behind Jared.

I stood still, chest rising and falling with heavy breaths. It was the same heavy breaths of air in my ear that reminded me of Embry's close hold on me, and I promptly pushed myself away from him. I turned towards him, knotting my hands in the roots of my hair and looking down at my feet. "What the fuck is his problem?" I asked, turning briefly to kick the wheel of my car as hard as I could. Heat was running through my body like Jared's words lit my body on fire.

"I told you not to egg him on," Embry said. "I'm sorry for the things he said. He's not in his right mind right now."

I looked up at Embry, his eyes finally meeting mine. I ignored the way his eyes widened and his breathing briefly stopped. "Then why did you just stand there and let him act like that? Let him say that shit to me?"

But I didn't get an answer, just Embry's eyes fixated on mine. He looked like he was in a trance, and, despite the boiling of my blood, I felt some sort of comfort in the wideness and deepness of his almost-black eyes.

And then, Embry dropped to his knees in front of me.

"What the hell is going on here?"

I whipped my head away from Embry and looked at the front door of the home to see Kim standing in the door, looking perplexed. "Remy?"

Kim's voice erased the weird sense of comfort I got from the look in Embry's eyes, and the rage rushed back through me. "Tell Jared he won," I snapped, and looked back at Embry once more before I got back in my car.

can i get sum reviews pls

im sure abt this chapter and the pace some feedback would help if i should do some revision let me know! lov u