A/N: … wow. So, uh, it's been awhile. If you still remember this fic, hopefully you'll enjoy the following monster of a chapter, once again filled with a few answers and many more questions. Innumerable thank-you's to Raych, my beta, for holding my hand and putting up with my two AM whining, as well as the ladies on the twilighted forum thread who checked in over the months to see if I was still breathing – and especially to fireandice, who wouldn't let me forget to finish this chapter when I felt like wallowing in writer's block.
"We must die to one life before we can enter another."
–Anatole France
Chapter Five
Claire's eyes darted around the tiny kitchen nervously. Her eyes briefly settled on the family's beaten and ancient oven, and she noted the time glaring back from the stovetop clock with quietly concealed panic. Nessie had been in the bathroom for over an hour.
An absence like this from Erin wouldn't have been worth noticing. She had always been the family's early riser, leaving herself a short eternity for morning preparations by locking everyone else out of the house's one bathroom long after the water had run cold. This habit had hardly affected Claire; she had been consistently late, always having to yank on yesterday's jeans and gather her crumpled homework from the floor in the few minutes before the school bus's arrival. It was little Nessie who would knock timidly on the bathroom door and ask for her toothbrush, prepared to get ready over a kitchen sink filled to the brim with dirty dishes. Mornings like that had been chaotic, filled with the smell of breakfast burning and the sound of their mother's frantic voice as she struggled to pack lunches and push everyone out the door in the same breath.
For a brief moment she wished they could all be transported back in time, that Erin's new haircut had resulted in an argument instead of an appreciative comment and that the jeans she wore were hand-me-downs three times over instead of something new that she had paid for with her own money. She brought both legs up and rested her feet on the countertop, ignoring the way it creaked under her weight and absently fingering the stretchy material of her jeans. Her left hand knocked against her knee and her eyes were drawn downward, to where the sun glinted off the small diamond set in her engagement ring. The suppressed ache for Quil rose up in her chest like a band around her lungs, making it at once hard to breathe and impossible to slow her short gasps.
Three more months and they would be married. After a lifetime of sweet friendship and painfully innocent romance, they were about to cross the final milestone. Then no one, in the pack or in her family, would be able to look at them as anything but equals. That, Claire decided, was worth trading all of yesterday's simplicity – even if it did mean dealing with her mother's wistful face and her father's bittersweet grins.
She couldn't help but suspect it was different for her little sister. She'd seen Nessie's interactions with Jake – the way she seemed to shrink away from his touch, however unconsciously, and the unspoken question in her eyes whenever she observed one of the other imprinted couples. It was easy to write off her concerns as hyper-sensitivity to Nessie's moods or big sister over protectiveness. She knew it was normal for a relationship to have growing pains after undergoing such a drastic shift. But the lost expression on Renesmee's face when someone mentioned Jacob, the questions still left unanswered sixteen years after her adoption… these details all gave Claire the small, niggling feeling that something was wrong and none of the pack was willing to let them, the weak and vulnerable imprints, in on the secret.
You're blowing this out of proportion, she told herself, irritated by her own anxiety. Only Nessie could have gotten her this wound up about something for no good reason. She was probably up in the bathroom toweling off and smiling at the thought of seeing the La Push branch of their family, not contemplating her place in the universe or stockpiling difficult questions to ask their parents tomorrow morning. That was the way it had always been, though, Claire realized: the few people who took notice of Nessie were almost obsessively fussy with her, despite the fact that she had consistently proven that she could take care of herself.
The uneasy silence in the kitchen broke when Erin entered the room. The heels of her pumps clacked against the tiles in a startling explosion of noise. "I'm going to go check on her," she announced decisively. "Emily said that Quil would try to get here before ten, and it's nine thirty now." Her hands, clenched in front of her and tightening spasmodically as she spoke, drew Claire's eyes.
"Give her a few more minutes. Quil isn't close yet." She met her sister's quizzical look without flinching, refusing to let her tongue get the best of her when Erin shook her head and made a muttered comment about imprinting. It was well known that most of the imprints had a sixth sense when it came to their wolves, although some of them showed greater signs of it than others. In Claire its manifestation was purely physical, an instinct that allowed her to feel when Quil was near or find him immediately in a crowded room. Other imprints, like Emily, who had been married to Sam for fifteen years now, seemed to share a mental connection with their other half, to the point that the alpha wolf's wife could almost always predict her husband's decisions regarding the pack. For the most part it was a small change, something that flew under the radar of those on the rez who didn't know about the wolves. There were times, though, that it flared up and became impossible to ignore or explain away as simple familiarity. Erin had never been able to accept it as something natural, much less good, and had often clung to it as proof that Quil's bond with Claire had somehow damaged her. Arguments on the subject had been frequent between them when Claire turned sixteen and began dating him officially.
Instead of pursuing a conversation on the subject, though, Erin walked to the abandoned breakfast tray and quickly packed its contents away, bagging the leftover muffins for later and scooping the rest of the fruit into the blender. Her movements were brisk and sure, and for a moment it was easy to forget that she hadn't lived at home for the past four years. The lack of space between them brought their shared moodiness into sharp relief. After a tense second they both seemed to relax minutely, happy to find company in their worry.
Claire was still unable to hold back a grimace when she caught sight of the other ingredients Erin was adding to Nessie's smoothie, thinking it looked about as bad as something packed with so many vitamins and fibers could be expected to. As she snapped a lid down on the pitcher and turned the machine on, though, her sister seemed oblivious to how nauseating it was just looking at the concoction. "Nessie's never going to eat that," she said doubtfully, wincing as her own stomach flipped.
Erin flicked off the blender and grabbed a tall glass from the cabinet. "Of course she will." Her eyes zeroed in on Claire's face and she pointed her index finger accusingly. "Bee does what she's told."
The pointed barb abruptly brought her back to the early morning conversation between the three of them, and suddenly the idea of dealing with her sister's theatrics was exhausting. "Don't push her around today, okay? Don't take advantage of the fact that she won't fight back." She met the eyes shaped and colored exactly like her own and waited until Erin had tamped down whatever argument she was itching to make and nodded reluctantly.
The small relief only highlighted her sharp need to see Quil, every cell from her head to her toes demanding he be here right this instant. She needed to hear his voice. To watch her fingers disappear in his football-sized hands and laugh at his over-the-top cockiness. To get some answers for her sister.
She steeled herself against the image of Jacob Black's furious eyes locked on hers, convincing herself that any bad reaction on his part would be worth it if she managed to unearth the truth. Jacob had had his chance to volunteer the information, and waiting for Renesmee to lose patience would take more mornings like this one than Claire was willing to sacrifice. It no longer mattered whether or not it warranted the secrecy and avoidance that had surrounded it for so long. If learning about her past broke Nessie's heart then Jacob would be there in an instant, ready to reconnect its scattered pieces and make her good as new.
The extent of his involvement in her past, however large or small, wouldn't change that. There was no damage, Claire believed, that imprinting couldn't heal – no choice that could alter a covenant that deep. All of her doubts to the contrary would be washed away as soon as she had the reassurance of Quil's touch and the knowledge needed to put peace back into Nessie's eyes. After this had been dealt with everything would fall into place, she told herself resolutely; her sister's night terrors and feelings of displacement would become a thing of the past. Whatever uproar she encountered in the process would be well worth it if the reward was her sister's peace of mind.
:o:+:o:
Nessie noticed the tension in the kitchen as soon as she walked into the room. Erin, who was crouched in front of the refrigerator, was in her direct line of vision. Out of habit more than any real interest, she sought out Claire and saw her standing against the opposite end of the counter, her arms crossed defensively over her chest. It was obvious from the thorough silence and strained atmosphere that neither had spoken in several minutes.
"What's up?" she asked quietly. Two sets of eyes immediately snapped to her face and her instinctive urge to withdraw into silence, something she battled during even the easiest of encounters, heighted to an almost unbearable level. She tugged at the sleeve of her sweater restlessly, her fingers brushing against the ever-present promise bracelet as she did so.
"This has been a really sucky morning, huh?" Claire said bluntly. She raised her eyebrows at the marked negativity, something that was rare from her sister, and wondered if her expression and body language were so transparent that commiseration seemed like the best way to placate her. The thought made her apprehensive and had her mental defenses rising instantly.
Whatever Claire's intentions, her comment set Erin at ease. Her clenched shoulders had relaxed when she emerged from her spot behind the refrigerator door a moment later bearing a large cup that was filled to the brim with something dark and green. "That's putting it lightly. And for what it's worth, I'm sorry I didn't pick a better time to open my big mouth and set off a bunch of life-changing revelations. What's the saying – like a bull in a China shop?"
"It's not your fault," Nessie replied quietly. There had been plenty of times over the years when Erin's innocent but insensitive comments had created needless drama; Nessie's current dull anxiety had nothing to do with any faux pas on Erin's part. It might have been easier if that was the case – simpler, perhaps, than finally understanding the sheer volume of lying that had been directed at her over the years.
Renesmee had never questioned her parents' motives for adopting after having two children; silently, she'd even wondered if her mother might have miscarried once or twice, or perhaps undergone an involuntary but necessary hysterectomy at Claire's birth. It seemed more likely, though, that she'd simply been unable to conceive again and had wanted to have another child. The fact that her parents had decided to adopt a white baby had been a source of curiosity over the years, but embarrassment had kept her from ever asking them directly. The possibility existed that her placement with them had been purely coincidental, and the thought of unintentionally offending them terrified her.
From the time she was little she had known intuitively that she was better off not asking questions. This had never bothered her, especially since it seemed unlikely her parents would have that many answers for her; she had always assumed that her adoption, whether private or through the state, had been impersonal and official, an assumption no one had ever bothered to correct or even challenge. All the close friends of their family lived on the reservation or down in La Push, and none of them had ever hinted or let it slip that the decision to adopt had had anything to do with the pack or with Jacob.
Jacob. Just his name sparked a chorus of contradictory emotions and thoughts inside her. She knew that if she let them take root they would carry her to conclusions she didn't want to face, and it was only with that knowledge in mind that she had been able to sluggishly make it through her morning routine and face her sisters. The realization that she would be seeing him soon was also pushed away in a desperate bid for control. It was safer to focus on everyone else's deception than to question why the one person she should be able to trust with her life had never once been honest with her.
And there was certainly plenty else to occupy her. The more Nessie replayed encounters with the pack, family birthdays and serious conversations with her parents, the more obvious it became that everyone had taken great pains to keep her in the dark. So many small, precise falsehoods had been woven into her understanding of her history, all to keep her from connecting a few vital dots. Every member of the pack, as well as their imprints and children, seemed to have known enough to avoid mentioning certain times and places in front of her. All of the awkward moments that she should have encountered as an adoptee, especially one of a different race, had never materialized.
Their best efforts hadn't been thorough enough to keep her from piecing a few key facts together. Renesmee knew about the initial vampire influxes in the area, and it was impossible to miss how close they had been to her birth. There had always been the silent understanding that the departure of most of the vampires had come at a price. Whether her parents had been friends of the Quileutes or innocent victims of a vampire attack, it seemed likely that that they had somehow been connected with the same battle that had driven out so many dangerous predators. Maybe – and the thought hurt more than anything ever had – vampires had killed her parents because of her tie to Jake. Maybe the one connection that had made her life seem worth living was the reason her parents no longer had lives of their own.
"You look glum, kiddo." Erin had joined her at the stairs sometime in the last few minutes. She wondered if her older sister had tried to get her attention before now and felt heat flood her ears at the thought. Nessie focused on the offering Erin was holding out, a large cup close to overflowing with filmy protein shake, and kept her expression neutral.
"I think it's a little early for that," Claire commented. She eyed the drink with doubtful eyes, looking mildly revolted, and sent Erin a brief glance that Nessie was too exhausted to decipher.
"It's always too early for this," she grumbled. She rubbed her aching forehead with the heel of her hand, struggling to soften the stiff, jerky movements into something soothing.
"Focusing on the awful taste will keep your mind off of other things," Erin said resolutely, suddenly sounding very much like their mother. Although she usually walked with her head buried in microscopic details, only choosing to come up for the odd humiliating admonition or familial screaming match, Erin's big sister instincts were on prominent display when it came to Renesmee's health, probably because she'd been old enough in those first years to understand how truly fragile it could be.
Nessie looked between her sisters, trying to measure when the mood of their conversation had gone from stressed to playful. Her emotions were still off-kilter from this morning's talk and her hyperactive mind felt as if it belonged to someone else entirely. The hour-long shower had provided plenty of time for her mind to conjure up various terrible scenarios, and in her fuzzy state of mind she hadn't been able to give any of them logical and peaceful conclusions. In some ways she felt unable to take even this small action. With weak and unsure hands she took the shake from her sister, her movements as hesitant and half-hearted as her earlier greeting had been.
Claire rolled her eyes and then smiled encouragingly, still battling the urge to cringe. "This is going to be a fun day," she promised.
Fun, Nessie thought, envisioning Leah, Erin, Quil, and an endless supply of bridal magazines all contained in one small room. She took a long swig of her smoothie and grimaced.
:o:+:o:
The car engine was still a muted roar outside when Jacob bound through the front door. His eyes found hers immediately. Despite the events of the morning a helpless smile played at her lips as she took in the instant brightening of his face. The impression his expression made seemed to suggest that seeing her lifted a physical weight from his shoulders. He looked like the happiest man on earth.
This, more than anything else, made it impossible to be angry at Jacob. He was so easily pleased by her, whether she'd done anything or not. The friendship he provided made almost anything forgivable and allowed her to sweep all her uglier feelings under the rug without peering at them too closely.
Renesmee caught a glimpse of Leah in her periphery before Jake's face filled the foreground of her vision, but before she could greet her two large, blazing hands were bracketing her face. The unexpected touch infused her with the urge to jump out of her own skin, irrationally afraid that when he pulled away her cheeks would crumple into ash. Then his intense stare drifted away from her eyes and fell to her lips, filling her with trepidation and providing the uneasy reminder that she wasn't as comfortable with this new part of their relationship as she pretended to be. There was no time for hesitation, though: in the next moment his lips had landed on hers, hard and quick and so very solid.
Despite its force the kiss was short. Nessie was still struggling to open her eyes as his hands left her face and easily slid down her arms. He brought both hands to one of her wrists, and as her eyelids finally burst open she saw him regarding the exposed skin with a wonderment that both thrilled and terrified her. The attention he lavished on her was too much for comfort, his unspoken expectations more than she felt able to meet.
With the need to collect herself foremost in her mind, she craned her neck in an effort to find Claire. The endeavor proved useless; Quil's burly frame obscured everything but two slim, brown arms that made it less than halfway around his torso. She turned to find Leah when a sudden gust of hot air hit the vulnerable skin at her wrist.
Her reaction was instantaneous. Waves of vertigo and panic swept through her body at top speed, mixing with the need to snatch herself away from Jacob's grasp as quickly as possible. The urge multiplied tenfold as Jacob softly kissed the skin that covered the connective joint between her hand and arm. She bit her tongue desperately. Tears stung her eyes and she swallowed down the beginnings of a whimper, instinctively understanding that if she let it loose it would turn into something ugly and uncontrolled. Please stop please stop please stop PLEASE –
A rumbling growl broke up Claire and Quil's light chatter and threw the room into sudden silence. Jacob raised his head and spied her expression, and Nessie struggled not to shrink away in the face of his immediate concern. He had probably taken her accelerated heartbeat as a good sign, she realized. The tight hug he folded her into jostled her aching limbs and cut off most of her air supply, and she leaned into it eagerly. She pushed the strange, discomfiting chill zipping down her spine into the back corner of her consciousness, too shaken to try to examine it objectively. Instead, she focused on the familiar warmth and comfort provided by Jacob's arms. This embrace was the connecting thread in all of her childhood memories. It had saved and smothered her – always reassuring her, forever leaving her lonelier than before.
Now she squeezed her eyes shut and reminded herself that this body holding hers, this broad chest and this angular chin and this skin that approached the heat of a stovetop burner, was the reality. Whatever had happened before was the culmination of the day's stress and even more proof that her body was determined to destroy itself. As if her rationalization had summoned it, she gradually became aware of the familiar arrhythmia of her heart, evidenced by the pulse beating in her temples like twin wrecking balls.
"What's wrong?" He hadn't pulled back yet. The warmth of his breath as it feathered against the skin behind her ear reignited both her sense and her lust, and she managed to calm her features, translating her relief into something less shaky. The words she wanted to say, the pleas to be held and to hear him talk about something, anything until her mind stopped trying to leave the rest of her behind, remained buried under the scream she had refused to let loose.
"We'll talk about it later," she promised, speaking in the same whispered tone he had used a moment ago. She knew that Quil would hear, as he always did, but trusted that he wouldn't repeat the exchange to Claire.
She could tell that Jacob wasn't happy with the answer, but Leah was already moving forward and taking hold of her. Less than two seconds had gone by before the female werewolf had steered her away from Jacob and to the front door. "Maybe some air will help," she said. Her voice was calm and her touch soothed the younger girl, but when Nessie's eyes flashed to Leah's face she saw the same undercurrent of menace that had been present for as long as she could remember. It kept everyone else frozen in place as they exited the house.
Everyone, at least, but Jacob. "She may have a temperature. What have you had to eat today, Ness?" The words were punctuated by the hollow clunk of his footsteps on the wooden front porch. She shivered as the biting Washington breeze swept through her hair and ruffled her clothes, leaning into the warm side Leah had offered and keeping her head down. At the moment she wanted nothing more than to ignore Jake altogether.
"Maybe getting mauled by someone twice her size sent her system into shock," Leah retorted, her arm drawing Renesmee even further into her. It was only as the female werewolf's heat diffused her shivering that Nessie realized her entire body was ice cold. More tears gathered in her eyes, large and warm and completely unreasonable.
For once Jacob bypassed the chance to pick a fight with Leah, instead taking a step forward; the movement spanned the distance of the tiny deck and put him less than an inch away from their backs. "Do you want me to see if I can get hold of Embry? Scarlet may want to run a few tests."
The suggestion made her stiffen. Embry had imprinted two years after Jacob, and his wife was the only doctor Nessie had ever been allowed to see – and even that had only taken place through official channels for the last eight years. Dr. Call was a soft, good-natured woman with an underlying steeliness, the perfect counterpart to her kind and reserved husband. She had a bedside manner that made her popular with the La Push and Forks residents alike, and usually it was easy to miss the small indicators of her alarm: the frown that formed between her eyes every time Nessie came in for an examination or had blood drawn, the downward pull of her mouth when she realized her most troubling patient had grown an inch and lost five pounds. But although it was evident that she cared for the youngest member of the pack family, Renesmee sometimes felt that the how's and why's of her illness consumed Scarlet's mind far more than any possible course of treatment. She hated the thought of her every hiccup and migraine being studiously written in a case file for later review, her health treated like some grisly science experiment with only one possible outcome.
With her head still bent forward and her shoulders hunched, she shook her head minutely and let out a soft 'no'. Then, mustering her energy and nerve, she asked quietly, "Could you just… give me a minute? Give us a minute?"
The pause that passed after her question seemed interminable, but it was only a few seconds before he turned and reentered the house. The front door's hinges squeaked and groaned as Jake closed it. Then there was only the sound of Leah's heavy breathing and the far-off shriek of the wind, and in the absence of a reason to maintain control the earlier whimpers escaped. Leah said nothing, simply pressing her head into the crook of her neck and stroking Nessie's fair hair away from her forehead with long, callused fingers.
Her outburst didn't last very long, and when it was over she spent one more moment collecting herself on Leah's comforting shoulder and then straightened awkwardly. The older woman took it as a cue to speak. "We dropped Kim off at the rez convenience store so she could grab some 7-Up. Do you want to walk over and meet her?"
"Yeah." They stood and started down the sidewalk wordlessly. Silences with Leah were easy for Nessie, a fact that struck the other members of her family as odd. The two of them fell into their own rhythm when they were alone together, though, something she suspected had to do with the fact that she had never viewed Leah as a victim or as someone to be wary of.
Kim met them when they reached the corner of the residential street. Her face was puffy, carrying a shine which managed to be attractive instead of off-putting. "This kid is going to be the end of me," she joked, one hand massaging her back in small, tired motions. "God, I don't know what it is with this one. None of the first three were this difficult."
Leah stood back from the visibly pregnant woman, eyeing the green tint to her skin with distrust. Nessie, on the other hand, went into Kim's arms almost instantly – the tiny woman was her favorite of her pack aunties. She exhaled shakily as fleshy arms enfolded her. They released each other reluctantly, and Kim searched her face with dancing eyes. "So? What did he say?" she whispered.
Nessie recalled the heated conversation from last night and shook her head softly. She saw Kim's face fall in sympathy before she smiled sadly. "You know they just care about you, right? Jacob especially – he forgets sometimes that you aren't caught up with him in age. All he wants is for the two of you to settle down and have lots of babies!"
Renesmee hid her faltering expression by turning around and clasping one of Kim's hands. "We'd better get back before they send out a search party." Leah guffawed.
The van was already filled with people. Jake and Erin could easily be heard exchanging barbs from the backseat, and Nessie saw with a grin that Claire had sweet talked Quil into giving her shotgun.
Before they could reach the vehicle she grabbed Leah's hand, waiting until Kim had climbed into the driver's seat before speaking lowly. "You never told me that I was supposed to live with you." She didn't bother concealing the pleading note in her voice. "And I never knew that Emily and Sam were going to take me in. Why hasn't anyone ever told me that?"
She was too late in noticing the anger radiating from Leah, and her reply felt like a slap in the face. "We never told you because it didn't matter."
Nessie dropped Leah's hand. It was a struggle to resist looking down. "It matters to me. And it matters to me that you never told me." The heat in Leah's eyes receded until she had regained her usual calm, and she brushed Nessie's hair behind her shoulder absently as she gathered her thoughts.
"I can't tell you what you want to know. I'm sorry." More words seemed to be on the tip of her tongue, but with a frustrated shake of her head she turned on her heel and climbed into the seat next to Quil.
After a moment's hesitation Nessie followed, groaning when she realized she would spend the entire trip crammed between Erin and Jake. She fell onto the bench without comment, too embarrassed to talk to either of them. They pulled away from the curb after Kim sternly reminded Quil to buckle up to a chorus of raucous laughter. The muscles in her leg tensed when Jake hesitantly rested his hand on her thigh, and she forced herself to relax before meeting his worried stare. "You scared me." His pained eyes made her flush guiltily, promising herself that regardless of the circumstances she would never jump away from him like she had this morning.
"I didn't mean to," she responded. She scooped his hand up and held it between hers, rubbing the fevered skin tenderly.
"I probably overreacted. You just… reminded me. Of someone I used to know."
Nessie squeezed his hand, overwhelmed by the darkness of his grief. It seemed so similar to hers, as if they were choked by the same weight. "I didn't mean to," she said again, letting him pull her into his chest. She didn't protest when her arm started to fall asleep near the end of the ride, or when Erin glared at them while Claire looked helplessly at wedding magazines. Her own fears held her at his side, wishing she could disappear into him completely.
:o:+:o:
The sun had almost completely disappeared when she slipped away from the rest of the party. For awhile she skipped small pebbles across the ocean surface, squinting at the indigo and violet clouds with disinterest. As the seconds rolled into minutes the sensation of stretching too tightly to fit into her skin increased until she was breaking into a sprint, angling away from the water and the largely abandoned barbecue at her back. She only stopped when she was more than a hundred yards away from the others and could barely make out their faces. The air escaped from her chest in a loud, breezy sigh, security enveloping her like a blanket. Her arms swung behind her head, and she turned sideways to maximize the pleasant release the position gave her muscles.
Renesmee spotted her almost instantly; as the only other white person on the beach she would have stood out even if they hadn't been standing so near each other. The stranger's hair was a muddy brown and fell past her waist, billowing crazily in the evening breeze. She warily eyed the pack members and imprints from her position on the fringes, her arms crossed protectively over her stomach in a makeshift shield. There was something almost skittish in her demeanor whenever someone approached. Instead of nodding in greeting or meeting their gaze, she would jump out of their path and study her feet until they had passed. The picture she made when compared to the laughing and boisterous group behind her was jarring – one that Nessie had imagined more than once herself, but with the outsider's face made hers.
For a painful minute she waffled back and forth over whether or not to approach her. Being so far from home wasn't usually an issue for her when she visited La Push, but after fighting with Jake and reaching a standstill with Leah she had felt jittery and fragile while trying to make small talk with her friends and family. A foreign urge to experience something outside of the tight folds of La Push urged her into motion now. She pursed her lips as she walked, hugging her middle in a similarly defensive gesture and looking down when the growing wind threw handfuls of unkempt curls into her eyes. When she came to a stop the other woman continued looking ahead, not giving any indication that she'd seen her. Then she blinked slowly, her head turning sideways, and her eyes subtly widened in surprise. "Are you crashing too?" she asked. Her voice was surprisingly husky, as if she'd been smoking for years. It was easy to detect the strains of sarcasm and unease in it, and for some reason this made Nessie more forward than she usually was around strangers.
She raised one eyebrow and chuckled silently. "Nah, I'm a regular. You know, I just keep hoping if I stick with this crowd for long enough some of the tan will rub off on me." The stranger gave a strangled laugh, and the blush that suffused her cheeks was nearly imperceptible in the fading light. Companionable silence fell over them as they faced the ocean. Then, her normal social clumsiness returning, Nessie lightly touched the girl's elbow. "You're Natalie, right? The new imprint?" She shifted under the sharp glance Natalie pinned her with and hurriedly added, "One of my older sisters is an imprint. Word travels pretty quickly in this circle." She was cognizant of the fact that she had omitted her closest connection to the pack and tensed under the weight of the small lie. It was so nice, though, to be looked at normally by someone, just once having a gaze directed at her that wasn't filled with questions and assumptions.
Natalie snorted. "I guess it would, considering most of them communicate telepathically." She drew in a trembling breath, her hands clutching in the baggy material of her shirt. Something about the action was so innately vulnerable that it made Nessie rethink her earlier guess at the imprint's age; she saw now that the dark's shadows had created hollows in her face where there were none and that the body that had seemed so mature from a distance still showed signs of growth. The newest pack member's imprint couldn't be any older than Claire. "It's kind of a double whammy, you know? Not only are they a different race, they're also a completely different life form."
Renesmee's thoughts turned to Jake's enthusiastic greeting that morning and a lump lodged in her throat. Not all that different. She was surprised to realize that she would have preferred there were a few more barriers between them, restrictions that would give her time and space for the thinking she so desperately needed. "It definitely comes as a surprise."
"It wasn't exactly a welcome one, either," Natalie admitted. One of her eyebrows lowered more than the other as her expression shifted into a frown.
"The werewolf part or the soul mate part?" Nessie asked. She had the sensitivity to be embarrassed by the unabashed curiosity in her voice, but she found herself eager to hear the answer all the same. Information on the new wolf had been spare, and news of his imprinting had reached her just that afternoon. Now that she was no longer the last known imprint she was eager to find out if there was someone who shared her own doubts and insecurities; if maybe Natalie's relationship, too, had hit a snag where all the others' had gone smoothly. It was stifling to wonder if she was the lone defective imprint – the only one who had ever felt suffocated or unsure.
She answered bluntly. "Both. We've both been struggling with his… phasing. I think he's more upset by all this than I am, which is probably part of the reason it bothers me so much. The growth spurts, and the constant fever, and that look he gets in his eyes when he starts shaking – it's like he's getting sick. And he's so lost…" Her voice broke and her face tensed against the onslaught of sudden tears. When she continued a moment later her voice had lost the edge of helplessness, instead ringing with annoyance. "And we've been together since freshman year of high school. We were engaged before any of this happened. I didn't need anyone to give me some cosmic swirl of approval, and I am so sick of everyone giving me these patronizing looks, like it's finally okay for us to be together. And those elders? Every time they see me it's like someone's forcing them to smile around a mouthful of shit. 'Really? Her?' Because I'm obviously not worthy of being part of their special group. As if this imprinting crap isn't the most fucked up part of this whole thing."
Renesmee stared at the ranting girl in horrified fascination, hoping for both their sakes that no one was close enough to hear what she was saying. She had never heard anyone – even Leah – speak about imprinting with so much derision. That alone was bad enough, but speaking out against the spirit warriors who were viewed by the tribal council as sacred was an insult she couldn't imagine would go unchecked by any of the elders. She wished there was something she could say that would be comforting or, at the very least, commiserating, but Nessie had no idea what it would help to hear. It wasn't as if she could say with a clear conscience that things would get better in time.
But Natalie, it seemed, wasn't in need of any reply; she continued speaking through pursed lips, figurative steam pouring out of her ears as the volume of her voice grew even louder. "Like those Young girls. Is that supposed to be true love, locking a kid into a relationship when they're still in diapers? Rushing marriage before she's even done with school? And just thinking about what happened to the other one…."
A sickening surge of adrenaline danced through her abdomen. The feeling of eyes on her made her look back at the fire pit, and she saw Jacob and Sam watching the two of them with hard expressions. Sensing that their conversation was about to be broken up and not entirely sure why, Nessie turned her attention back to Natalie. "What… what about the younger girl?"
Sharply pulling at a few stray locks of hair, she turned her stare on the horizon. Her eyes had become startlingly dark, widening with some feeling akin to horror. "Way back when the pack first formed, Jacob Black was best friends with the daughter of the Forks police chief. Her boyfriend and his family were vampires – I guess that was the reason why the new generation started phasing. Anyway, they got married, and he was going to change her. But she got pregnant."
With me. Bile lodging in her throat, Nessie wildly scanned the shoreline for Jacob's face. "You just… reminded me. Of someone I used to know." The words reverberated in her head on an endless loop, and suddenly the grief that had saturated his eyes made sense.
The center of her universe had… murdered… her parents. Jacob, who had pampered and protected her for the whole of her life, whose struggle to keep her near had grown so all-consuming that free will was a thing of the past.
Jacob, who had most likely been in love with her mother.
"Sam and the other wolves wanted to kill all of them. Nip the problem in the bud, I guess. But Jacob wasn't willing to do it. He broke away from the pack, and the girl wolf and her brother went with him. They tried to protect the family, but when the baby was born Jacob imprinted and just went crazy. He attacked the vampires and made his beta get the baby out of there while the other kid got torn up trying to hold off Sam's pack.
"They ripped the entire coven to pieces, including the human girl. Then they set the house on fire and walked away. Didn't bother looking for the kid who was half dead in the woods. Didn't even call the firehouse." She stopped, gulping for breath and looking like she was trying not to gag. "No one outside of the pack and the vampires even knew about the baby, so they handed her off to the Youngs' and made sure her grandfather never found out about her. She's completely human – supposedly, anyway. But her health has been in the toilet since she was a kid. They're not really sure how long she'll hold on."
"Nessie."
The voice that broke through her nightmare didn't belong to Jacob but to Claire. Her face was streaked with tears and her hair laid in a matted mess around the crown of her head. Claire's lips, usually turned up into a smile, were trembling wildly. It was as if every emotion that should have inundated her had instead been turned on her sister.
"What's going on?" Sam's sharp voice was loud in the silence, his steady glare turned on the newcomer who had been so free with the pack's secrets. With effort Nessie looked away from Claire and fixed her bewildered stare on him. This man was an honorary uncle. He had rocked her to sleep, invited her into his home. Sheltered her from every bad thing that threatened to injure her.
"You… killed my parents. My family." His eyes were pained but unrepentant. The lack of shame filled her with numb amazement.
The spoken response, however, came from someone at the edge of the woods. "It was to protect you."
Jacob's shoulders were slumped. Her eyes, by now adjusted to the darkness, took in the resignation pouring from him, and she wondered how long he had stood hidden in the shadows. The moment marked the first time she had ever thought of him as a coward. "If it was for my protection, why do you look so guilty?" He flinched as the wind carried her question to him. Then his hands were reaching out tentatively, beseeching her, and she realized with a small jolt that the only reaction it provoked was mild impatience. Her mind had shut itself away someplace safe and left her body to stumble through the confrontation without aid.
For a moment she saw them in a different life, and the image was so vivid her eyes strained to process it: parents younger than her, pale faces like the one from her memory smiling at her lovingly – and Jake, the family friend and love of her life. Impossible as it was to explain, she was somehow sure that even in that world there would have existed a decision that mirrored this one.
The word that tore her away from him forever was clipped off tonelessly. "No."
And as it left her mouth the torrent of rage that built within her shook her to the very core of her being, making rational thought or action impossible. An anguished howl tore its way out of her, ending and beginning again and again as she gasped in fresh lungfulls of air. Her hand clawed at the bracelet tied around her wrist and she tore it apart with bruising force. The broken fragments of Jacob's promise settled uselessly in the sand.
No one stopped her when she stumbled off into the trees, running for all she was worth.