A/N: Once again, thank you to KBelle1 and TheEagerScribbler for beta reading this chapter.

Chapter 3

March 18th, 2010

The phone rang from its place across the room, and I groaned. The workday had felt long, and now that I was home, all I wanted to do was rest. Just the walk to the other side of the room felt too long.

But if I didn't pick it up, the obnoxious noise would keep going. I took the five steps to the dresser, snatching up the phone. Seeing Nessie's name on the screen, I muttered a few choice words under my breath.

Nessie had gotten a phone a few weeks ago, and while she had excitedly given me her number, this was only the second time she'd used it to contact me. Last time it had been a request for me to pick her up and bring her to La Push. I didn't want to know what she wanted this time.

"Leah," Nessie said as soon as I had clicked to answer the call. There was a note of desperation in her voice that I picked up on with that one word. I could feel a shiver of dread go down my spine.

"Yeah?" I asked. It was a struggle not to pull the phone away from my ear in an attempt to not hear what Nessie wanted to tell me.

Of course, I did hear. There was no way not too, and the increased certainty that Nessie was crying on the other end of the line only made the situation worse.

"Can you come get me?" she asked, sniffling. "I don't want to be at home right now, and Jacob's working. I don't want to call him and make him come get me."

He would if she called. He'd done it before, and I knew that Nessie had felt so guilty that she hadn't done it since. Instead, she'd taken to calling me or one of the guys as a backup plan.

"Yeah, I'll come," I assured her. I brushed off her thank you, sighing as I hung up the phone. I stood up with a groan, dialing another number as I worked on putting on my shoes.

"Hello?" Embry's voice could be heard through the phone as I began hopping around on one foot, trying to slip my shoe on while the phone rested between my ear and shoulder.

"Change of plans," I told her him, annoyance seeping through my voice. I didn't feel a need to disguise it with Embry like I had Nessie. "Don't come over. Nessie called. In Tears. I'm going to the Cullens. I'll call you when I get back to the house."

Embry sighed. "What's wrong this time?"

I wasn't sure when Nessie being in a bad mood had become expected instead of an anomaly.

"I don't know," I grumbled. "Not like I was going to ask and risk her telling me everything without letting me hang up the phone."

Grabbing my car keys, I hurried through the house and out to my car. I would have preferred running. It's how I got everywhere unless I had a good reason for why I couldn't. Nessie's current state was one of those reasons. I knew she wouldn't want to run while she was upset. She was the type who preferred to sit and wallow in self pity.

"Come by here," Embry offered. "I'll go with you. Deal with Bella and Edward if they're annoying, talk to Nessie about her feelings, whatever else you don't want to do."

I hadn't realized that I wanted Embry to do just that until he'd made the offer.

"Thank you," I said with a sigh of relief. "I don't think I'm in the mood to listen to any of them after working all day."

Not that Embry would have been in any better of a mood after sitting in class all day. He should have been as tired as I was, if not more so after making the run to and from Port Angeles today.

"You're welcome," he responded, and somehow, he didn't sound upset or tired about it. He would be much better at dealing with Nessie than I was.

That became even more apparent when I arrived at his apartment and he got in the car with a smile on his face that hardly appeared tired. His happiness made me pout, and Embry grinned in amusement as he leaned in to give me a brief kiss.

"Let's get this over with," I complained, putting the car in reverse and backing out of the driveway.

"So, she didn't tell you anything?" Embry questioned, looking out at the trees that flashed by along the side of the road.

"Just that she didn't want to stay at home," I said. "Like I told you, I didn't ask more than that. I'm sure we'll get the whole story later. From Jake if Nessie doesn't want to talk to us."

"You told him yet?" Embry asked.

"No, when would I have had time?" I shot Embry a look out of the corner of my eye, and he shrugged, not trying to argue. "I figured I'd call him once he got off work. You know as well as I do that he'd leave and go get her himself otherwise. Nessie called me for a reason."

Embry nodded. "Right, right. I agree, but he's going to be angry when he realizes she was upset and no one told him."

I sighed, knowing Embry was right. I'd known it from the beginning, but that didn't meant I was going to call him. "He'll get over it. Especially when Nessie tells him that she wanted me to come get her. He can't stay angry with me for following his imprint's wishes. That's like Imprint 101."

Embry didn't argue with that, and soon enough, we began to smell leech from the car. I flipped the air conditioning off, which did little to make the smell disappear for us wolves. Scrunching my nose and bearing it, I drove up to the familiar house.

Nessie sat on the front porch steps, watching us drive up with a detached look on her face. Edward stood behind her, close to the door of the house. It looked as if he'd been rebuffed and begun to guard her from afar. Nessie stood up before I'd put the car in park. She offered a halfhearted wave in Edward's direction but didn't glance back at him.

I looked at Embry, silently asking if we should say anything to Edward before we took his daughter and left. Embry shrugged while Nessie opened the car door and slid in behind him, buckling her seatbelt without looking up at us either. I glanced back at the porch. Edward stood in the same spot, looking at me instead of Nessie. He offered a slight nod and turned to walk back in the house as if he was handing over Nessie's protection to me or something.

With a sigh, I turned around to look at Nessie, unnerved with the level of quiet we'd encountered at the Cullen house. She had settled into her seat, a bag clutched close to her side. Her eyes were on me, but there was a faraway quality to them that unnerved me, like she was begging me to drive and not make her talk.

So that's what I did, turning around and putting the car in drive instead of asking any questions. Embry, on the other hand, wasn't as eager to led Nessie wallow. Just as we had turned back onto the main road towards La Push, he turned around in his seat to get a better look at the half vampire.

"What's up?" he asked. He phrased it casually, as if that would make it easier for Nessie to answer. Instead, when I glanced in the rearview mirror, I saw her shoulders sag as if Embry had defeated her when he began trying to get her to talk.

There was a long stretch of silence, and despite Nessie's obedient nature, I thought there was a good chance that she would refuse to speak. She certainly seemed to be debating the same thing with herself, but eventually, it seemed, she couldn't help but answer.

"Aunt Rosalie called this morning. She said she had something important to talk about with me."

Nessie sighed as if she couldn't bear to go on with the story. When dealing with human kids her age, I would have prepared myself for something overdramatic, something that only seemed like it was a big deal to the kid telling the story, but there was a way Nessie said it that told me this really was a difficult subject for her.

"We have a new family member," Nessie said, almost causing me to swerve off the road in shock. I glanced at Embry to make sure I wasn't the only one having trouble processing those words, and he was staring over his shoulder at Nessie in wide-eyed shock. He contorted himself so that he could see Nessie better, straining his neck in the process.

"Family member?" he asked, voice rising in what could only be described as something close to panic. None of the little information we had on this sounded good. I wanted to bang my head against the steering wheel as I thought about being the one responsible for passing this information onto Jake and Sam.

"Aunt Rose and Uncle Emmett heard rumors from some nomads that there was this young vampire a few towns over. A girl who didn't look much older than me, Aunt Rose said. She felt worried, especially since the other vampires said the girl was alone and appeared to be a newborn.

"They tracked her down." Nessie's voice cracked as she told the story. "And found her. She woke up from her transformation alone two years ago. She was thirteen when she was bitten. Close enough to being an immortal child that Aunt Rose thinks the vampire who bit her must have thought it wasn't safe to stay around, but the girl can't remember anything close to the transformation."

Nessie took a deep breath, needing to steady herself before she continued with her story. It felt like it had become more difficult, not easier, for her to speak the further into the story she got.

"Anyway," Nessie said with a sigh. "Her name is Lauren, and Aunt Rose convinced Uncle Emmett to take her in as long as she agreed to becoming a vegetarian. She had been sticking close to her parents' house before, not knowing where else to go but having to stay hidden from them."

Nessie turned her face towards the window, letting her hair fall down and obscure her face.

"She needed somewhere to go," she continued. "So it's nice that she found our family."

It sounded like she was parroting something that had been said to her instead of something she meant. Her voice was flat and emotionless.

I glanced over at Embry, unsure of what I could do that would break the tension in the vehicle. The drive back to La Push suddenly felt like an unending journey. Nessie, for her part, appeared willing to sit in silence in the back seat. Embry looked between me and her as if trying to decide what to do. It didn't seem like Nessie expected us to respond to her story. She didn't look at either of us, and her posture conveyed a closed off girl who didn't want to talk about it. No doubt she had talked about it enough.

Jake was going to be furious. I could already see it, and considering his imprint would be at my house, I was destined to witness his reaction to learning of this new Cullen addition for himself. I knew Embry had thought the same thing because I could see the dread in his expression when I glanced over at him.

By the time we reached my house, none of us had spoken since Nessie finished her story. Nessie's seatbelt was unbuckled before I'd put the car in park, and she bounded out of the vehicle and through the front door of the house as soon as the car had stopped. Embry and I remained behind, watching her disappear without bothering to unbuckle our seatbelts.

"How am I both shocked and not surprised?" Embry asked, keeping his voice low out of hope that Nessie wouldn't hear what was being discussed between us.

I could hear voices in the house that I knew belonged to Seth and Al. They seemed to be talking to Nessie, but she didn't say anything in response that I could catch from the car.

"I never liked Rosalie," I reminded Embry. "I mean, I never liked any of the vampires, but I always disliked her especially."

"Can you fault her for wanting a kid? Especially after watching Bella get to be both a vampire and a mother. That has to be hard. I remember the way she used to watch Ness. She wanted this badly."

I didn't care for Embry's justifications of Rosalie's actions. "She has an eternity to find a kid. Why'd she have to do it when Nessie is still torn up about them leaving?"

"I don't think she planned it," Embry pointed out. "It just happened."

"Just happened my ass. They went looking for the vampire girl, and it's not like she would be the only one they ever managed to find if they tried."

"It's not like this is her replacing Nessie."

"See. You and I can get that, but I don't think Nessie can. And that would be the problem. A problem that I don't think Rosalie Hale, self-absorbed vampire of the century, grasped when she decided to become someone's vampire fairy godmother."

I unbuckled my seatbelt with a click, shoving open the door and heading inside. Truthfully, I was more frustrated with Rosalie because her actions had thrust an upset child on me than I was frustrated with her life choices. Those didn't matter to me. I knew that even as I ranted to Embry, but I didn't need to tell him that.

Embry was close behind me when I entered the house. Nessie had taken a seat in an armchair, book already open and held in front of her face as if she were blocking out the rest of the world. I could read The Secret Garden across the front cover in a fancy font.

Seth and Al were also there as I had expected. They were sitting side-by-side on the couch, and they both glanced over at Embry and me with raised eyebrows when we entered. I shook my head to signal that it was best we didn't answer their questions at the moment. They both looked back at Nessie, still in confusion, as if they were trying to work it out for themselves.

"Nessie," I asked, taking a seat in the armchair across from her, "do you know when Jake gets off work today?"

It was always around the same time, so I had an idea. But he would want to know about this as soon as possible, and Nessie was guaranteed to have the exact time.

"Six," she told me, flipping a page of her book.

Her short answer caused Seth's and Al's eyes to widen further, and they glanced at each other and then at me and Embry once more.

I glanced over at the clock as Embry took up the remaining space on the couch. It was five thirty, so there wasn't much time. I took my phone out of my pocket and began fiddling with it in my hand, tempted to call Jake right then and get it over with.

"Whatcha reading?" Al asked Nessie out of the blue. He leaned over the armrest of the couch to get a better look at her book, and surprisingly to me at least, Nessie turned the book around so that he could see it.

"The Secret Garden," Nessie explained. "It's about this orphan girl who goes to live with her uncle in England and discovers a secret garden hidden at the house."

Al nodded along with her quick summary. "I think I've heard of it," he responded, and I wasn't sure if it was the truth or not.

"I hated that movie," Seth complained, tilting his head back on the couch and groaning.

Watching Nessie's face, I could see that she didn't take well to Seth's quick dismissal of the movie's merits.

"Which version?" she asked. "The BBC miniseries? The 1993 one? Was it the Hallmark version?"

Seth's head shot up in a moment of panic. "I-I don't know," he admitted. He glanced around at us as if we'd be able to help, but not even I knew which adaptation Seth had seen. I could tell from his expression that Nessie's quick-fire list had confused him.

"The 1987 one is the best," Nessie said. Her voice was at least animated for the first time since we'd picked her up. "That can't have been the one you watched. You'd have liked it then."

Seth hesitated. I could tell from the look on his face that he had no intention of watching the movie, but he'd seen what Nessie had looked like when she came in and the fact that she looked even remotely happy now had made him reluctant to say so.

"I'll have to check it out," he lied, and Al tried to stifle his laughter, prompting Seth to shove him away. Al didn't react except to reclaim his place at Seth's side.

If Nessie thought anything of Al's laugh, she didn't show it. She had gone back to her book, eyes traveling steadily across the page as she read. Whether or not anyone in the room was laughing seemed to be the last thing she cared about.

I watched as she pulled her knees towards her chest, the book leaning against her thighs. She looked like she was curling into a ball. I sighed, and Embry reached out to take my hand in his, letting them hang over the space between my chair and the end of the couch where he sat.

Everything was quiet for what felt like ages after that. The only thing breaking the silence was the whispers of Seth and Al, talking about something I hadn't bothered to listen to, and Nessie turning the pages of her book. I continued to fiddle with the phone in my hand, lighting it up time and time again to watch the clock change.

Three minutes before six I lost my patience and stood up, moving toward the kitchen to talk to Jake in an illusion of privacy. Embry shattered that illusion when he got up and followed me.

I heard Seth and Al's whispering die down as I dialed the phone number, and I knew that they were listening in as intently as Embry was even if they had remained in the other room. Even the sound of the pages of Nessie's book turning had stopped as I waited for Jake to pick up.

"Hello?" Jake answered, a question in his tone. No doubt he had no clue why I would call him immediately as he got off work unless it were important. I tapped my fingers against the kitchen counter that I had leaned on at some point. "Leah?" Jake continued when I didn't answer him. "Do you need something?"

"Uh, yeah," I managed to get out while still debating with myself over how I should handle this conversation. Something I should have decided on during the wait. "I have your imprint at my house."

"Oh." There was a pause as Jake tried to remember if there was a reason for that. "Why, exactly, is Nessie at your house?"

"I think it would be better for her to explain that to you when you get here."

There was a moment of hesitation where I could tell that Jake was fighting the urge to demand more information. Then, there was a sigh, and Jake said, "Right. Okay. I'll be there in a second."

He might have literally meant a second for all I knew. I wouldn't have put it past him. Not when I could hear the strain in his voice. He would have been worried about this no matter what recent events had transpired, but I also knew that Nessie's moodiness had him more concerned than he would have been in the past.

He hung up the phone without a goodbye, and I rolled my eyes as the line disconnected.

"He's on his way," I told Embry, who had a concerned downturn to his lips as he watched me. He would have heard everything Jake had said.

I brushed past him and back into the living room. Seth and Al didn't bother to pretend like they hadn't been snooping. Their eyes were on the kitchen doorway when we entered the room, and they didn't look away. Seth went as far as raising his eyebrow in another silent question. I shrugged. Jake would be here soon and would need the whole story. Seth could wait until then. I was more concerned about Nessie, who had overheard the phone conversation as well, but she wasn't as eager to look at me. Her eyes stared at her book, but they weren't moving across the page like they had been earlier.

Jacob was at the door by the time I had settled into my seat, and Seth managed to get up and let him in before I could put much thought into it. Jake rushed passed Seth, not paying him any attention.

Nessie had given up all pretense of reading her book, dropping it down into her lap to look up at Jacob. She appeared close to tears for the first time since I'd picked her up. Like being in proximity to Jake was the only thing she'd needed to let out the negative emotions that had been building up inside of her that day.

Part of my brain thought that I should get up to give them privacy, but another part knew that Jake would want us to hear his opinion. Getting up would only mean being summoned later, so I stayed put.

"Nessie, what's wrong?" Jake asked, voice softening from the panicked tone he had used over the phone. He kneeled down in front of her, and I could see Nessie squirm as she confronted the story for a second time.

"Aunt Rosalie and Uncle Emmett took in a new vampire. She's thirteen, and her name is Lauren. She was abandoned by the vampire who created her, so now she's part of our family."

Jake's back was turned to me as he faced Nessie, so I couldn't see the expression on his face. I did see his shoulders stiffen, though, as he looked at Nessie for a long moment, not saying a word. Nessie cast her eyes downward towards the book in her lap, flipping the corners of the pages in her hands to provide a distraction.

My eyes glanced over at Seth and Al to see them staring at Nessie with a look of worry and, perhaps, fascination as they took in what she had said. No doubt they felt as shocked by the information that there was a new Cullen as I had been. It had never been a possibility that I had considered, especially considering the treaty about not biting humans around La Push. Even though that restriction had been broken once, I hadn't expected it to happen again, and the possibility of an already turned vampire joining their coven had been even further from my mind.

I looked over at Embry to see him watching Jake, a hint of worry in his eyes. He turned to me when he felt my eyes on him, and there was a question there, like he wondered if one of us should speak up and say something to Jake.

Before I could think of what to do next, Jake stood up, still looking down at Nessie. Her eyes followed him, watching to see what he was going to do next. Jake glanced around the room at each of us before he turned back to his imprint. Then he turned around to face the rest of us, indecisive about what to do or say.

"Fuck," he groaned, causing Nessie to cringe from her chair. She never liked when anyone used 'bad' language around her, but she was particularly affected this time. Jake realized the same thing a moment later, apologizing to her quietly as he began to pace.

Then he kneeled back down in front of Nessie, looking over her like he was looking for injuries or as if anything might have changed in the ten seconds since he'd last been kneeling in front of her.

"Are you okay?" he asked her anxiously.

"I'm fine."

The reply was an obvious lie. Everyone in the room knew that, but Jake's distress was the first thing that had gotten Nessie to even attempt to appear okay. It was a marked change, like Jake had taken some of Nessie's negative emotions and relieved her of them. Which was great except for the fact that I wished Jacob would calm down.

Jake didn't believe her reassurance, and he continued to inspect her for any hints of the truth, causing Nessie to groan.

"I'm fine," she repeated, this time more insistent.

Jake nodded, going along with it because he knew that it would be hopeless not too. Instead, he motioned for her to stand up.

"Come on," he urged. "I'm going to call your mom to talk to her about it."

Nessie went to slip her book into her bag, sling the strap over her shoulder, and stand up. Still, she wrinkled her nose when Jake mentioned calling her mother.

"Do you have to right now?" she asked, a note of desperation in her voice. "Can't it wait? As soon as you call, she's going to want me to come home, and I'm not ready for that yet."

Jake sighed, but I could tell that he knew that the words Nessie spoke were true. I doubted he would call Bella.

"I'll wait," he said, confirming my prediction. "But not too long, okay? She's going to want to know that you're okay."

Nessie nodded, although she didn't look happy about it. I couldn't say that I was either after the insinuation that Bella would be freaking out over Nessie's wellbeing. What did she and Edward think I would do with their daughter? Furthermore, what did they think I would do that would result in a half vampire child actually getting hurt? Sure, I could kill vampires, but managing to physically harm Nessie on accident? That wasn't easy. I felt offended that Bella would think I was that incapable of watching a child that so rarely caused problems.

Jake and Nessie disappeared out of the house, and as soon as the door was closed, I heard Embry's quiet laughter. I snapped my head around to look at him and saw that he was watching me, having taken in my angry expression after Jake's comment about Bella.

He reached out to take my hand, stroking his thumb along my skin. I let out a long breath, trying to let out some of the frustration that I knew was pointless. I shouldn't care enough about Bella Cullen to be angry with her. It didn't matter.

"That was interesting," Al piped up, causing Seth to hum in agreement.

"Rosalie and Emmett really went and adopted another vampire?" Seth asked Embry and me. He was the only member of the pack that would have held any genuine interest in the topic upon hearing about it. Even Al rolled his eyes at the enthusiasm in Seth's voice, and I was glad that Seth had waited to voice his question until after Nessie was gone. The last thing she needed to hear was that anyone could be excited about the new addition to her family. She'd heard that enough from the vamps already.

"Apparently," Embry said. "We only got Nessie's version of the story, but she said they heard a rumor and went and found the girl. She's been a vampire for two years."

Embry had his thinking voice on, which wasn't surprising. I would have guessed that this had him thinking about something, even if I wasn't sure what he could have gotten out of it.

"Do you think this will affect the Volturi?" Al asked. He was the only one, apparently, who had bothered to think about that little detail, although I imagined it would be the first question Sam asked as soon as someone bothered to tell him about this. "When they come for the Cullens, I mean," Al continued. "If they're worried about the Cullens gaining power, then adding another member to their ranks sounds stupid."

The thought hadn't occurred to me, but Al had a point. I was concerned more about the frenzy such a possibility would send Sam into than I was the Volturi themselves. Embry, however, looked thoughtful, and Seth bothered to respond.

"Maybe, but she's only thirteen, right? I don't know if the Volturi would worry about her."

"She was turned at thirteen," I pointed out, unable to resist making the correction despite not wanting to talk about it as if it posed a danger. "Technically, she'd be fifteen if she hadn't died. As it is, a vampire is a vampire. The Volturi have those creepy twins, remember? I think a vampire is a vampire to them too. Except for the immortal children, they'd consider them all the same threat regardless of age. The Cullens could use a teenaged vampire to fight like they could any other vampire.

"Not that I think the Volturi are going to attack soon," I hurried to add, not wanting to alarm anyone to the point that they sounded the alarms of other members of the pack. "Until Alice has some change in her visions, I refuse to worry about it. We'd be stressing ourselves out over something that will likely happen centuries after our deaths."

"I agree with Leah," Embry said, causing Seth and Al to turn their heads towards him. "It seems illogical to view an attack by the Volturi as something that could happen in the near future. It's self-centered, isn't it? To think that these vampires who have lived for millennia and will live for an eternity, or who at least expect to, would bother to attack us within our lifetimes. It's the same as the Cullens have said. It doesn't seem like something that we should worry about."

Seth took Embry's words easily, nodding along in agreement. Al didn't look as sure. His eyes were distant as he thought about the story and what the rest of us had said. He looked unsure and hesitant, not confident that he could trust our point of view.

I knew that he would be talking to some of the other wolves about this, possibly as soon as tonight. Nick, especially, would hear about it as Al's best friend, and it wouldn't be long before Sam caught wind and forced us into a pointless meeting. All because Al was unnecessarily worried and would need to talk about it with someone who would worry along with him.

"I'll bring it up with Jake when he's less caught up with his imprint," I promised Al, hoping that such a reassurance would make him less eager to share this news with the others. At the very least, I wanted time to talk to Jake and convince him that he should talk Sam out of a meeting when the time came.

Al nodded, but I had no way of knowing whether or not my attempt had worked. I would find out for sure once I was either stuck running countless patrols or had managed to avoid it.