The dream I was having seemed so real. Charlie and I were sitting out on an old dock on Lake Crescent, our feet dangling over the edge. I looked up at him, loving the way his arm felt around me as I studied his face. His gaze was fixed the water, a lazy smile playing at the corner of his lips. Those lips that now belonged to me. I reached up and gently ran my thumb across his mustache and his smile spread wide. The time I was spending in my happy place was interrupted by the shrill yell of my brother yelling "Leah! Phone!" before chucking it at my head. I threw the first thing I could grab off my side table towards the door where I knew he was standing. I heard the alarm clock slam into the wall as I grabbed the phone. This next shopping trip was going to be painfully expensive.
"Hello?" I mumbled sleepily into the receiver as I sat up in bed. "Lee," Jakes voice sounded urgent on the other end, "something's wrong." I rubbed my hand over my eyes, still trying to wake up. "What are you talking about, Jake? What's wrong?" I wasn't worried, despite Jake's tone. Ever since he'd imprinted on Renesmee, he'd been jumpy. The last time she had run off to play without telling him, he nearly called in the National Guard. Not that I blamed him, especially now, but still. "Alice had a vision," he responded, still sounding wound up.
"And just what did the sparkly munchkin see this time? Is Timmy going to fall down a well? Because I sure as shit am not Lassie, you know." Okay, so I was being kind of a bitch. But I was tired and really didn't understand why Jake had woke me up to give me news about the Cullen's. He knew how I felt about them, even now. "Damn it, Leah, will you just shut up and listen to me for once?" I was about to make some snarky comment when he cut me off. "Alice saw two nomads passing through Forks. She said they were going to pick up the Cullen's scent and go to investigate. Leah," he said my name with such intensity and desperation that I couldn't help but feel my stomach drop. "They're going to go looking for them when they don't find anyone at the house." He didn't need to say anything else for me to realize just what Alice had seen. There was only one other place in Forks that reeked of the Cullen's. I barely managed to choke out "when?" as I was throwing the covers off me and diving out of bed. I knew where I was going no matter what Jake's answer was. "Today. I don't know exactly when. We're on our way back, but Alice doesn't think we'll make it in time."
I didn't even bother to hang up as I threw the phone out of my hand, not caring where it landed. As I flew through the living room, I saw Seth and Jared playing one of their stupid video games and yelled "Charlie's in trouble. Vampires. Come on!" as I dove through the open door, my paws hitting the dirt at the bottom of the front steps. I pushed myself with a sense of urgency that I had never felt before. Maybe I should have called Charlie to warn him, but I didn't want to waste the time. Besides, what would I have said to him? Charlie still didn't know the whole truth about what his daughter had become. I sneered at the thought of her. I never had any issues with Bella until I saw how she treated Jake, but now, now that Charlie was in danger because of her selfishness, I loathed her entire being.
"It's not like she meant to put him in danger!" Seth whined as his thoughts again became mine when he phased. "Don't you dare defend her to me right now," I thought with a growl. "Are the others coming?" Two vampires wouldn't be too much of a problem for the pack, but I didn't want to drag Seth into a fight where it would just be the two of us. "Jare's getting the rest of them now." And right on cue, I heard a howl break through the silence of the woods. "Hurry," I thought, "please, God, hurry."
Being the fastest in the pack had its advantages. I knew I'd make it there before anyone else, but at the same time, I wasn't sure that I wanted to. I didn't know what I'd find, what I'd be facing, or how long I was going to be facing it alone for. I was pushing myself as fast as I could go, but it still felt like time was moving so slow. It was a Saturday. If I was lucky, Charlie would be at work. Maybe the presence of so many people in City Hall would detract these two long enough for me to keep him safe if they followed his scent from his house.
I didn't want to think about the alternative. Saturday. There was probably some sort of game on. Charlie was trusting enough to open the front door for anyone who knocked. Not that they'd have to or even bother. Growing up, I had always seen my father and his friends as the strongest men in the world. It wasn't until the moment I phased that their weakness and fragility became so painfully evident. The first sight I had seen when I first looked at the world through a wolf's eyes was my father on the ground and my mother kneeling next to him, compressing his chest as she performed CPR.
Charlie was no stronger than my father had been, though I never thought about it until he became my imprint. Healthier, maybe, but that wouldn't help him if I didn't get to him in time. I ran through the trees and an occasional yard as I hit the city limits of Forks. Yeah, it was dangerous, but I didn't give a rat's ass about keeping anything a secret right now.
As I hit the woods that surrounded my imprint's house, the woods that always had seemed so safe and familiar, the acrid bleach smell of leech hit me like a wrecking ball. All I could think as I broke through the tree line was that I was too late.