Chapter 2

"HELLO CLEARWATER HOUSHOLD!" I shouted as Seth and I walked through their back door. We just finished taking a walk through the woods and I almost had my assignment completed. Seth said he smelled fresh cookies coming from his back door when we got close enough to our yards.

The Clearwater house is a small and cute little thing. It had light brown shingles with a cute little front porch, like mine. This house was like my second home. Sue was practically my second mother and I was always welcome here. I came here after school with Seth all the time and Sue always had fresh chocolate chip cookies for us.

I smiled when I saw Sue pulling out a pan of cookies out of the oven from the kitchen, but my smile faltered then fell as I looked at who was sitting in their living room. The famous La Push Gang. Awesome. I stared at Paul Walker and Jacob Black as they watched the TV. They either didn't notice me or chose to obviously ignore me.

Seth grabbed my wrist and dragged me up the stairs to his room.

"Why are they-" I began after the door shut.

"Shh. I don't know how but they can hear us." He whispered.

"From up here?" He nodded his head. "Why are they here?" I whispered

"Well, as you know, Leah got sick the other day and Sam and his pack of followers haven't left the house since. One of them is always there and it's really annoying. Especially when it's Sam." Sam had broken Leah's heart a year or two ago. And then went after their cousin. It was terrible. Leah was a wreck and poor Seth was upset because Leah was depressed for months. Sam is the reason Leah became the bitter bitch she is. He is also the reason me and Leah stopped hanging out. Leah and I were like sisters, but then they broke up and she shut me out. She shut her whole family out. Now the only time we talk is when she brings food over to my mom that Sue had cooked. But normally Seth does that.

"Is she ok?" I asked.

"I'm not really sure. She's been locked up in her room. I actually haven't seen her at all since she got sick. Mom says it's 'too contagious'. That's probably why she keeps me out and busy with errands or something all day." He walked to his closet to grab the camera and I sat down on his bed, looking around at his room.

Unlike any teenager's room, it was clean and organized. Sue must come up here every week to clean it. He had a full-size bed and a small desk that was covered in homework and stuff. I looked up at his dresser. He had tons of pictures on it. There were two pictures that caught my attention.

One was me on Seth's back down at First Beach. Brady had taken the picture after he stole Seth's camera. Seth had eaten my last grape so to get back at him I tried attacking him and hopped on his back. I smiled at the memory.

The second picture was taken in Seth's kitchen. Brady and Collin were visiting their grandparents and Kat was sick that day. To make Kat feel better, Seth and I decided to bake her cookies. The picture was of me with flour covering my entire face, smiling to the camera while holding up a giant cookie we had tried to make.

"What are you giggling about?" Seth asked coming out of his closet with his camera in his hand.

"I'm laughing at these two pics. I can't believe you have this one!" I said pointing the one of me covered in flour. He just shook his head and laughed.

"How could I not? I mean c'mon, you're the only person I know that would get their entire face covered in flour!" I shoved his shoulder and walked downstairs to the kitchen, Seth trailing behind.

"Hey Mrs. C!" I said cheerfully, ignoring the glances that Paul and Jacob kept giving me from the living room. I wonder if they could have even heard us whispering in his room.

"Hello sweetie. How are you today?" she asked, setting the tray of fresh cookies in front of Seth and me.

"I'm good, how are you?"

"I've seen better days." She sighed.

"Aw, what's wrong?" I asked as I bit into the cookie.

"Uh … Leah isn't feeling too well." Seth placed two glasses of milk on the table and bit into his sixth cookie.

"Oh, right, Seth told me about that. is she ok? What does she have?" I asked.

"Just a fever and stuff, but I hate seeing my kids sick. They're just too cute to be sick!" Sue said, pinching Seth's cheeks as he tried to grab a cookie.

"Moooooom …" Seth complained while Sue and I just laughed.

"Well, these cookies were great Mrs. C! But I gotta go say hi to my parents since I see they're finally home from work."

Seth led me to the back door and then followed me as he walked me back to my house.

"You know you're welcome to crash at my house when you want. Like if your mom is trying to keep you out of the house." He smiled down at him.

"Thanks bub, but I've actually been at Brady and Collin's for the past two nights. But that was because Kat had turned me down." I smiled when he called me bub. Every now and then Seth lets a cute little nickname slip out but neither of us make a big deal out of it. We've been best friends for so long, it's obvious after a while you're going to want to use nicknames a little more meaningful than friend or buddy.

"You asked to spend the night at Kat's?" I asked in disbelief. Kat is one of our closest friends. Along with Collin and Brady.

"Yup." He popped on the 'p'.

"And how did Collin like that?"

"He practically ripped my throat out." he frowned. I just laughed and he shoved my shoulder playfully. That was so Collin. He is a complete idiot 99% of the time, but when it comes to Kat, he is so protective. That's probably why Kat's dad lets them date; Collin is so sweet to her.

Kat's mom had died from cancer when we were three. Kat didn't know her all that well so it didn't affect her all that much, but I remember my mom telling me how devastated Kat's dad was. Kat is an only child, so it's just her and her dad. That's probably the reason her dad is so protective of her. They own a cute little house on Cherry Street. It's right around the block from Seth and me. Collin and Brady live down the road from her, so we're all close together. The woods in Collin and Brady's back yard are connected to the woods in my backyard so we always sneak through them at night when were all hanging out.

Collin and Brady are twins. But they are complete opposites. Collin is a sweet boyfriend to Kat; Brady is a total player and is with a different girl every other weekend. Collin isn't the brightest; Brady is a freaking genius. Collin plays drums; Brady plays guitar.

The only thing they are the same at is their sense of humor and that they are both what they like to call emo. Well at least they dress like they are. They always wear skinny jeans and tight v-necks. Their pants hang low on their waist, which is odd seeing that they always wear these weird checkered belts. Their hair is sort of long. Collin has it long in his eyes while Brady has it spiky in the back with fringe to the side of his face. I'm going to be honest, both of them are pretty hot. All of my friends are hot actually- Seth, Brady, Collin, even Kat is beautiful! I feel so lucky to have such amazing looking friends with matching amazing personalities.

"Well thanks for walking me back!" I said to Seth as I walked up my back steps. Seth's phone rang before he could respond.

"Hello?" Seth answered, putting the phone on speaker.

Hey

"Oh hey Brady!"

"HI BRADY!" I yelled to the phone so he could hear me.

"Stevie it's on speaker, you don't need to shout." Seth told me, chuckling at my stupidity.

Do you and Stevie wanna go to the beach later with Collin and Kat and I? Seth looked at me and I nodded.

"Sure."

Cool! We're going around 9ish.

"Ok. We'll be there!"

See ya then!

Seth hung up and turned to me. "Wanna meet out front around 8:50? So we can walk over?" I nodded. "I guess I should go get ready then, speaking that it's already seven and I'm starving." He started to walk back to his house.

"See ya in a bit!" I yelled to him. As I looked around the yard like I always do, behind the tree line I saw an animal just laying on its paws. It was a large grey wolf. It was looking at me, as if it was watching me. I was about to yell to Seth to hurry up and get inside just to be safe but as I turned to his house I saw Jake, Paul, and Sam standing by the Clearwater's backdoor, silently looking at the wolf and then over at Seth and then at me.

Weird.