A/N: Not much Jared in this chapter, but he will take a large part of the next chapter.

Also, thanks SO much to all of those who reviewed/alerted/favorited. It was greatly appreciated! I can't reply to y'all individually 'cuz I'm a busy person, but thanks again.

Review and enjoy!

"No one is listening until you make a mistake."

—Unknown

Have you ever pulled into your driveway and taken extra care to fumble with your keys as much as you can? Have you ever tried to search for an item you know is in your bag? Have you ever trudged up the front walk, walking as slow as possible deliberately?

All because you know your mom is waiting in the living room, ready to pounce on you for whatever trouble you've gotten into while you were out?

Well, Kim had done that routine more times than she can count. Alex and Rory were already inside, no doubt, probably doing sit-ups or hogging the computer for online classes, respectively, and Kim was still sitting in the car, her mother's words from her earlier phone call running on repeat through her mind.

I'll punish you when you get home. I'll punish you when you get home. I'll punish you when you get home. I'll—

Oh, fuck this. Kim gathered her crap into her schoolbag and climbed out of Cami, slamming the door with unnecessary force. Why delay the inevitable, anyway? Kim thought, the knowledge that she was destined for a good chewing out making her grimace. Liana is always pissed in the time between the daytime shift as a maid to graveyard shift at hospital reception desk in Forks (job #3), and there really isn't anything you can do to avoid her wrath beyond attempting to hide in the linen closet.

Taking care to kick a stray pebble back into the gravel driveway with as much force as she could muster (and stubbing her toe in the process), Kim had begun to meander her way up to the front door when the eerie sensation of being watched fell across her. She could sense someone's eyes on her back like laser beams, and it was enough to make her whirl around and glare into the woods across the street from her house. She saw no one as her dark eyes began to rove the shadows between the tree trunks, but the feeling hadn't left.

Anyone—or anything—could be hiding behind those trees.

With that disconcerting thought, Kim walked up to the front door as slowly as she dared. Her hand had barely touched the beat-up brass doorknob when the door was wrenched open so fast that a gust of air hit her face, and Kim found herself face to face with a force of nature dressed in a Maid-to-be-Clean uniform. A very angry force of nature; the kind of force of nature that screams You will pay if you cross me.

"Kimberly Perdita Connweller, what the hell were you thinking?" Liana Connweller crossed her arms, and at 5'9", the woman was freaking scary. Especially when genetics forced you to have to look up to her.

"Hi, Mom," Kim sighed, avoiding looking at her mother and moving to go past her into the house.

"Don't you dare 'Hi, Mom' me, young lady! I've half a mind to make you sleep outside tonight, you hear? Dear God, what the fuck have you been doing? Or should I say who?" Liana narrowed her blue eyes. Somehow, Liana had lucked out with blue eyes, which were almost never seen on the reservation. Kim would have been intimidated by this woman if she had just crossed her in the street, let alone having to live with her and obey her. Liana was good-looking, but tired and weary, like someone who'd been beautiful once but life had smacked the beauty out of her; she looked like Pocahontas might have looked like after she'd been taken to England and known she would die there, never to see her tribe or homeland ever again.

"I haven't—" Kim began, but Liana's blue eyes glared at her, silently daring her to continue. Kim cut off quickly.

"Don't you dare sass me, young lady!" Liana snapped. "I cannot believe that Daphne Carlton told me that you were all over that Cameron boy in school! Good God, Kim, the last thing you need is a reputation! I will not have a slut in this family! You hear me? I get one more word of this and you're out, you understand me?" Kim resisted rolling her eyes. She doubted Liana had even noticed that Laura hadn't come home yet and probably wouldn't make an appearance until the next day, or maybe even the weekend. Laura wasn't exactly subtle about the fact that she was at her on-again off-again boyfriend Tyler's; her underwear drawer would be left open, her overnight bag gone, her perfume lingering in excess in the room, and her black heels would be gone. Liana had to look very far the other way to ignore the fact that there already was the a Connweller family slut, and it certainly wasn't invisible-to-all-males-except-Jared-Cameron-inexplicably Kim.

"Yes, Mom."

"I suppose you think it's okay for you to just exercise your needs whenever you want, Kimberly? Well, at least Laura is discreet about it." Ah, yes. The unspoken opinion that always seemed to be repeated wherever Kim went.

Why can't you be like Laura?

Why aren't you asserting yourself, Kim? I mean, your sister Rory is one of the greatest…

You know, Alex was so good in the game last night. Kim, why didn't you ever go into sports? You have to be good at something, right?

Oh, Kim, what a good job on this test. You know, Laura might be the beautiful sister, but you can always be the smart one, right? Except your younger sister…I've heard such great things about her! I guess you aren't the smart sister, then, huh? Well, I guess all families need one of those, I guess.

What the fuck was 'one of those' anyway? The family screw up? The loser? The ne'er-do-well? The this-is-who-you-don't-want-to-be-when-you-grow-up? The flop?

"Go make yourself useful, for once. I can't look at you right now." Liana stepped aside, putting her head in her hand. Kim took the opportunity to rush past her mother into the dimly-lit living room/kitchen/dining room/den. The Dash room, named for the numerous dashes in its name, had been painted green once, a long time ago, and the paint was peeling and faded on the walls. It was mostly kitchen, with stained, faded yellow linoleum floor tiles and a rickety old table and sink that always leaked; there was an old TV with an antennae and really bad reception (watching regular TV wasn't really an option unless you liked soap operas or the Spanish channel) in front of a patched-up couch that might have been green once, but now was brown.

Alex was draped in front of the TV, taking up the entire green couch for himself and watching a Sonics game. His dog, a border collie called Flower (inexplicable; Kim had always thought Alex was weird), was sitting next to him on the floor, his head positioned perfectly for Alex to scratch him. Rory was positioned behind the TV and attempting to make it work. She may have nearly been a genius, but Rory clearly wasn't the next Thomas Edison. However, she managed to get ESPN with only a fair amount of static, so Kim supposed it was so sort of accomplishment. Neither of them bothered to look up at her when Kim entered the house. As suspected, Laura was nowhere to be seen.

Just play it cool, Kim thought as she began to quietly hurry to the stairs. You get to your room and you've successfully passed Mom without severe punishment!

"Oh, and Kimberly?" Liana called, shoving the door closed behind her. Shit, Kim thought. Not so home free after all. "You're on Grandmama duty tonight."

Kim stifled a groan, merely nodding at her mother and continuing on her path to the stairs. Grandmama was probably one of the oldest people in the tribe; certainly, she was older than Billy Black and Old Quil Ateara (Quil Ateara III). Kim couldn't pinpoint her exact age, but she was definitely in her late eighties, having been alive when Ephraim Black was chief of the tribe. Liana had said that she'd been on the Council of Elders in the 80s, but Alzheimer's disease and general senility had severely limited Grandmama's mental capacity. She'd retired and had become slightly agoraphobic in more recent years, as well as more or less insane, and rarely left her room, and Kim had only seen her set foot outside once, on a day when it was sunny and Kim was twelve.

Grandmama duty consisted of keeping Grandmama's room clean and making sure that there weren't very many things Grandmama could use to harm herself or others, considering that she was sometimes prone to fits of insane rage, in which she would throw whatever she could get her hands on at whoever was with her at the time.

She needed to be looked after, and with Kim's Uncle Roger (Liana's brother) in Los Angeles pursuing his music career (that had been a bust; Uncle Roger was now a janitor at some high school in LA instead, and rarely came home for holidays) and Aunt Renata living off the land or cleansing her aura or supporting whatever weird hippie cause Aunt Renata was in favor of, Grandmama's care had fallen on Liana. Or, more accurately, Kim, since Liana worked almost 24/7 and Kim's siblings rarely bothered with Grandmama. Kim was easily the most patient and gentle of any of her family members, with Liana being generally hot-tempered and having her patience worn thin by the three jobs she worked, and she was able to put up with Grandmama the best. That, and the fact that Kim was the only one able to approach Grandmama without eliciting a fit of panic in the old woman, were prime reasons that Kim was always the one to look after her great-grandmother.

The house had four bedrooms, although two of them were more like walk-in closets than bedrooms. One was for Laura and Kim; another for the twins, which had gotten increasingly awkward once they hit puberty; one for Liana, which had been her childhood room and was the room in which Aunt Renata stayed in whenever she chose to drop by; and one for Grandmama, which had a blue door with a large, brass doorknob that didn't close all the way. Dropping her schoolbag in the doorway of her and Laura's room, Kim quietly wrapped her tan hand around the brass doorknob and turned it. It squeaked loudly, the door swinging open and light falling on the cluttered room before her.

Grandmama's room always had a stuffy, musty odor to it, like old aromatherapy candles Aunt Renata had brought home from a trip in San Diego a few years before. If the old woman ever cracked open on of the windows, Kim would have been surprised; they were always shut and heavily curtained. It was messy, dirty clothes and dishes littering the floor. How long had it been since Kim had cleaned in here? She was not so sure, but it must have been a long, long while.

"Hello, Grandmama," Kim said softly, flipping the light switch. There was a rustle in the pile of blankets on the bed before a withered hand reached out from the recesses and hurled a plate at Kim. Ducking the plate and hearing it shatter against the door, Kim began gathering the old dishes and stacking them together to take back downstairs.

Around twenty minutes later, Grandmama's room was sufficiently clean and Kim had managed to dodge almost all objects that her great-grandmother had thrown her way, minus a mug that had connected with her forehead and left a red mark.

Balancing the plates on her arms, Kim treaded cautiously on the worn carpet and squeaky floor, hoping to pass by her mother. Kim had just made it behind the kitchen counter when—

"Kimberly?" Kim cursed under her breath at Liana's voice.

"Yes, Mom?" Liana appeared in the kitchen, leaning against the refrigerator and looking stern.

"Kimberly, you know I just want the best for you, right?" Kim nodded meekly, her eyes on the floor. "You haven't given me much to work with, but you can't throw everything I've worked so hard to give you on a little schoolgirl crush. That Cameron boy is bad news, Kimberly, and you don't want to get mixed up with that sort of boy. A girl like you—lonely and naïve with a semi-satisfactory body," Kim stiffened as Liana gestured at Kim's person, stung by her mother's hurtful words, "That boy's a real miscreant. Daphne Carlton was telling me that that Sam Uley boy's gotten him and that Paul Lahote mixed up in some sort of drug business." Liana's eyes narrowed, and she stalked towards Kim threateningly. "If I get hear one tiny implication that you are running with the wrong crowd so help me God, I will beat you within an inch of your life! You understand me, Kimberly?" At this point, Liana was waving her finger in Kim's face, so close that they were nearly nose to nose.

"Y-yes, Mom," Kim stuttered, studying the crummy linoleum floor as if it were a recently recovered Da Vinci masterpiece. Kim knew her mother wouldn't really hit her, but she certainly wouldn't go unpunished—probably extra chores, derision, and being ignored. Kim was used to being ignored; no one bothered to look past her siblings to see her. Kim kept to the shadows and she liked it there, for the most part.

But would it kill her mother to give her some sort of recognition? Her own mother! I can't do anything right, can I? Kim thought dejectedly. When something good happened to Kim, like making straight As or something, Rory or Laura or Alex managed to outdo her by doing practically nothing at all.

It just wasn't fair that some people got to be born perfect whilst others got to be born average.

Mediocre. Ordinary. Standard. Typical. Dull. Boring. Insecure. Quiet. Shy. Timid. Self-conscious. Plain. Average. Average. Average. Average! Fucking average!

It just wasn't fair that some people got to be beautiful like Laura and athletic like Alex and smart like Rory while she, Kim, was just… Kim.

It certainly wasn't fair that she had to be related to them.

"Good, now leave me alone. I can't bare to look at you right now, Kimberly." Liana turned around, signaling the end of the discussion.

Kim sighed softly, leaving the Dash room and going up the stairs, making sure to tiptoe past Grandmama's room. Picking up her schoolbag, Kim entered her room and sighed again. It was sparsely furnished, with only two dressers, a desk, and a bunk bed to count as furniture. However, it was pretty messy around Laura's dresser and as predicted, the overnight bag was gone, the underwear drawer open, and the whole room smelled of Heart of Darkness perfume.

Tossing Laura's ballet flat into the closet and shuffling to her bed on the bottom bunk, Kim pulled out her phone and pressed 3 on the speed dial.

Natalie picked up after three rings. "What do you want?"

"Natalie? It's Kim." Kim said, as if Natalie's caller ID hadn't given that away.

"I know, dipshit. Your mom kill you yet?"Natalie yawned loudly, making her displeasure at being called known.

"Oh, yeah, because I'm totally calling you from the afterlife!"

"I guess she did, then, huh? What she'd tear into you for this time? Wait—let me guess. Your shoes were untied. No? You didn't make Student of the Month. No? Okay, uh…Rory's doing better in college level courses than you are in junior level? Alex can actually run without cramping and beat a new record at school? Laura won money in a pageant? Rory got accepted into a new Quiz Bowl tourney?"

"No. Sabrina Carlton's mom told—"

"Ah! That bitch! She totally ratted me out to my dad for skipping class that one time! I fucking hate Daphne Carlton! And Sabrina's a gossipy bitch, and Irina's a little nitwit slut. I heard she's got a thing for your brother, did you?"

"Natalie!" Kim shouted. Natalie quieted somewhat. "Mrs. Carlton told my mom about Jared asking me out."

Natalie whistled in appreciation. "No shit? Damn, girl, how are you still alive?"

"You're being discouragingly nonchalant about this, Natalie." Kim snapped, more than a little on edge from her scolding from Liana.

"Eh, I just woke up from a twenty minute nap; I'm never particularly enthused about anything until I've been awake for at least half an hour," Kim could practically see Natalie shrug. "Are you excited for your date with Jared, Kim?"

Kim blushed at the warm glow that rushed through her at that thought. "Yes! I'm so excited I can hardly breathe! I've just gotta keep a low profile 'round Mom so I don't get grounded this weekend."

"Yeah, that'd suck," Natalie agreed.

"Totally. You wanna stay over after so I can tell you about it?"

"Sure, that's cool. I wasn't invited or anything, so…yeah. It's not like I have anything better to do," Natalie sounded more than a little bitter about it, so Kim decided to play it cool and pretend like she'd never noticed anything resentful about Natalie's tone.

"So, sleepover? Laura'll probably break up with good ol' Tyler so she can have free reign at the party, and knowing her, she'll be gone that night, so you can have her bunk."

"Ew, Laura's sex bed? You think I want STDs?"

"Really, Nat? That's like saying you could get pregnant from a toilet seat!"

"You can!" Natalie insisted. Kim rolled her eyes, rummaging through her backpack.

"That's a myth, Natalie. Besides, Laura never brings guys home. Mom would have her head." Kim moved over towards the window to grab a pencil glancing out the window as she did. Kim did a double take, dropping the pencil to the ground and blinking.

"Kim? Kim? You still there?" Natalie asked, concerned when Kim stopped talking. But Kim had a very, very good reason to ignore Natalie and rub her eyes repeatedly. The reason?

There was a fucking wolf in her backyard.

The wolf was bigger than her car, almost as tall as her. She would have thought it a bear if she hadn't seen the lupine snout, ears, and legs. It was a brownish color, with long, sharp claws and a glowing eyes. And it was staring right at her. It didn't move, just eerily sitting there, staring at her window. Into her eyes, and into her soul. She felt like she was on fire under its penetrating gaze, like she had been cold all her life and was finally being warm; like she'd been confined to a cave her whole life and was just now feeling the warmth and soothing calm of sunlight on her skin.

Holy shit holy shit holy shit was on a constant stream in Kim's mind, despite the fact that it wasn't from fear so much as shock and bewilderment.

Kim blinked. The wolf was gone, and with it went any warmth Kim had in her bones. She found herself inexplicably missing the comforting presence of the wolf in her yard.

"Kim? What the fuck? Are you there?"

"Sorry, Natalie," Kim apologized, shaking her head as if ridding it off water. "I'm really tired, I think I should go to bed."

"Oh, well! Bye," a click and a dial tone echoed on the other end; Natalie had hung up. Kim flipped her phone shut and tossed it on the bed.

"Why do I feel like I'm living in some sort of fairy tale?" Kim asked herself. First Jared noticing her romantically, and then she's finding comfort in the presence of a mutant monster. Her life was getting pretty weird.

Oh, if only she knew.

A/N: Foreshadowing...? Ahem, YES! Review, and Happy Belated Earth Day!