Chapter 4

Nerves start to eat me alive as we walk down the winding sand track leading to First Beach. Seth is holding a pouting Chaska, he wants to play in the water, and I don't want to be up for the next week dealing with a sick three-year-old.

"But Mummy, why not?" he whines.

"No, Chaska," I say, the calm in my voice wearing thin.

"But Mummy-"

"What part of no don't you understand the N or the O?"

"But Mummy-"

"Seth, I blame you," I growl through gritted teeth.

"What did I do?!"

"I leave Chask alone with you for ten minutes. Before those ten minutes that kid had not whined once in his life. Now…" I trail off, gesturing to the boy in his arms.

"You have no proof," Seth shrugs, holding his head a little higher.

"That smirk on your face is proof enough." Seth chuckles then whispers something to Chaska, too quietly for me to hear. "Great, you broke him; I think I would prefer you to crash my truck," I mutter as we reach the beaches edge. Starting towards the far end of the beach I see movement of people and the flicker of a flame, in the fading day light.

"But Mummy, Why-?"

"What if tomorrow we come to the beach, the whole day, and you can do whatever you want? Just be good- and that means no listening to Seth," I add quickly.

"Really?" Chaska's pouting lips turn to a sweet dimpled smile.

"Really," I nod.

"Love you Mummy," Chask says in a sing song voice, now as happy as could be.

"Traitor." Now Seth is the one pouting.

"No offence Seth, but if I have to put up with a tantrum, I would much prefer it to be yours. But just tell me first so I can film it," I chuckle. Seth starts to mutter my words back to me in a bad impression voice but is cut short when someone yells his name.

I look away from Seth and Chask to see we're closer to the group of people than I thought. I can see Mum and a few other women mulling around a table of food. I pick out Leah easily, her hair still cut in a short bob – only Quileute girl I know not to grow out their hair – intently talking with Mum and not paying any attention to us, as the only boys there run the hundred-meter distance between us with incredible speed.

They can't be older than fifteen, both obviously Quileute with black hair and copper skin. One wears cut-off jeans, a tattered black t-shirt and black sneakers. The other has on a red cheeked button up, ripped jeans and no shoes. The one in cut-offs speaks first. "Hey Seth, who's-" his eyes give me a quick once over, and a cheeky smirk forms on his face "-this?"

No-shoes elbows him and sends me an apologetic smile. "Sorry about Collin he's…" he drags out the 's' thinking of the word "-a pig. Hi, I'm Brandon." He holds out a hand and I shake it, chuckling lightly.

"Boys this is Ava, my sister. And her son Chaska," Seth says, and Brandon's hand falls limp from mine. Both boys look at Seth like he's grown a set of elephant ears, then back to me, jaws hanging loosely for a second before cracking up laughing.

"Good one Seth," Collin says, clutching his chest like his laughter is stabbing him in the sternum.

"That's true as the sun is hot and ice is not." Their laughter slows, looking at me confusedly. "I'm Ava May Clearwater, second child of Sue and Harry Clearwater." They stop laughing, looking surprised and curious.

"…Then why have we never met you before?" ask Collin raising one eyebrow.

"Haven't visited for a few years, and when I was here I wasn't very sociable." I guess that's as good of word as any to describe me back then.

"Why did Sue not mention you were coming to visit?" ask Brandon.

"It was a surprise; Leah doesn't even know I'm here." I flick my eyes back to where I last saw Leah, just checking she's still occupied. Leah has her back to us but I see one of the other women there looking our way, but Mum must have already seen us and is straight to the woman's side, whispering something in her ear.

"I don't believe them," Collin mutters at Brandon.

"Yeah you're right, I rented two actors for the night to play a prank on yous," Seth says sarcastically.

"I guess not," Brandon says, looking at Chaska intently. "…How old is he? Course if you're younger than Leah that means-"

"It means don't do the maths," I cut his wondering short. "Now I had the time of my life talking with you two, really it was a blast," I say sarcastically with a roll of my eyes. "But my mother is either landing an air plane, or signalling for me to hurry up." We all look over to see Mum waving her hands back and forth above her head.

I quick step away from the boys, towards my mother as she gets back to the table by Leah. Not counting my mother and sister there are four other Quileute females here. I only recognise one of them, Emily Young, a cousin on my mother's side of the family. The last time I saw her she was probably seventeen but she hasn't changed to much if you take away the three scars marking her face and the swollen stomach. She's still beautiful as ever though.

Emily sits by the fire with two girls in their mid-teens; all are watching me with curiosity. I see small tears fall from Emily's deep brown eyes as she mouths, "Ava."

I lift a finger to my lips signalling to be quiet as I stop five meters away from Leah. They nod softly and I draw a deep breath.

"Hey Leah!"

"Oh what?!" she snaps spinning to look at me. I'm not surprised by the venom in her words, my sister always had a temper problem.

"Long time no see, Lea-Bee," the anger on her face melts away to an expression of disbelief, Lea-Bee was my own nickname for her no one else dared to call her that.

"Wh-? Av-? You-? No-? I-? Can't-? You-?" she stutters as her eyes water. She takes a shaky step forward before falling to her knees and cupping her mouth to soften the loud sobs. It kills me to see her like this because of me. Without me even knowing I fall in the sand next to Leah, wrapping my arms around her and crying tears I hadn't realised I had started to shed. "Your- Your real-l. You're really here," she sobs into my shoulder.

"Yeah, Lea-Bee. I'm her, and I'm not going anywhere," I promise.

#So please review, I love to hear what you think (good or bad). By the way Leah isn't a wolf in this story just an imprint and heads up for later Claire is 15. And I what to send a huge !THANK YOU! To everyone who has reviewed other chapters, you really don't know how much it means to me -it takes a lot to make me cry and when I woke up at eight after staying up to two to post chapter 3 and saw the responses to this story I was in tears (happy ones) thank you all so much…#

#Hope you have a nice day/ night, thank you so much for reading!#