Chapter Two: Apparitions at Midnight

"Hey," James Wilson said, brushing his overgrown black hair from his eyes. "I'm James."

Oh, please, she was not blushing. She was? Well, that would just be her luck, wouldn't it, Mollie thought.

"You're Mollie, right?" They were waiting in the lunch line in the small cafeteria, in a small island of empty space surrounded by the dull roar of the student body. Mollie couldn't pretend she hadn't heard him, though.

So she said, "Yes," and there it could end.

Except it didn't. He followed her through the cafeteria, watched as she added a turkey sandwich and an apple to her tray, walked with her to her lunch table. He didn't try to sit with her, only tapped her lightly on the shoulder and said, "See you around."

The people at her lunch table gawked. "You just—James Wilson. Jeez," said Lindy. "I haven't seen you interact with a boy who wasn't Brett or Jake, since well, ever." Mollie hadn't told anyone about her encounter with Embry from the day before.

"You did very well," said Jess approvingly.

"She didn't do anything. She let him do everything." Lindy snorted. "I swear, Mollie. You're so socially inept. You should just let him fuck your brains out, and then maybe you'd be able to talk to him. Call it an icebreaker."

Mollie's cheeks heated. "I don't think I'll be doing that."

"Suit yourself," shrugged Lindy. "I would."

"You wouldn't," snorted Jake. "You're not nearly as much of a slut as you pretend to be."

"Oh, really?" she taunted. "Want to find out?"

"Shut up," ordered Brett. He pegged Lindy on the chin with a wet kidney bean.

"So, Brett, plans for the weekend?" said Jess, determinedly steering the conversation from the previous topic.

"None." He shrugged. "You?"

"Shopping in Port Angeles," she said brightly. "You should come!" Brett groaned as the rest of the group snickered.

"No. Just no."

"Suit yourself. Mollie, got plans? Or are you coming with me?"

"I . . . a girl named Kim invited me to a bonfire at First Beach," she offered. Why had she said that? No one needed to know. In fact, she wasn't sure it even had been an invitation. It was really more of a suggestion. Or a comment.

"On Saturday?"

"Friday."

"Well, then you can still go shopping on Saturday with me. You up for it?"

"Um."

"Well, think about it, at least. And let me know," said Jess. She smiled. "And who's Kim?"

"I met her yesterday. She lives on the Quileute reservation," said Mollie. "She sprained her ankle, and some friends of hers brought her to the emergency room while I was volunteering. We—she—talked."

"Kim Connweller?" asked Brett. "I know her. Isn't she dating the hulk?"

"His name is Jared," volunteered Mollie.

"Did he bring her in?" asked Jess.

"No. It was two other boys. Brady and—and Embry." Oh, Embry. And here came the subject she'd been studiously avoiding for the past twenty hours. She knew she'd felt something, and she thought maybe he did too. When their eyes met, something happened. But that was silly. Only now that she'd allowed herself to think about it, she couldn't stop. She didn't even remember much of how he looked. Just how he felt, from across the room. Warm, like a hug. Like he meshed with her somehow. Two neodymium magnets, tossed in the air, passing just close enough that they snap! together in a crackle of energy.

"Mollie, Mollie are you okay?"

"She's crying again. Why's she crying?"

"I'm fine," she said. Pull yourself together, girl. "But I have to go. Maybe I'll see you later."

Jess followed her to the waste station, where they dumped their food and trays. Then then she pushed Mollie down a series of hallways and into the girl's locker room. It was empty, but Jess checked anyway, and then she locked the door behind them. She waited patiently while Mollie washed her face in the bathroom. When Mollie was done, she pulled her onto the locker bench beside her.

"Anything you wanna talk about?"

"Yes," Mollie admitted. "But I'm not sure exactly what."

Jess cracked a smile. "Well, when you figure it out, I'm here."

They sat together, side by side on the wooden bench, until the warning bell rang, and when they left the locker room Brett was waiting outside just across the hall, and the three fell silently in step as they walked to calc. It was nice having—well, whatever they were. Friends.

To Embry's heightened wolf-nose, the old garage smelled like oil, metal and leather, but also strawberry shampoo, spruce trees and pack. Jake and Embry co-owned the auto body shop just outside of Forks, but most of the older wolves worked at least part time there. Embry and Jake were working mechanically, fitting new doors on a complete wreck of a 1996 chevy impala. Embry wondered if Mollie liked cars.

"Thinking about her?" asked Jake. "It's not like you thought it would be, right?"

"No," admitted Embry. "It isn't at all." Jake understood. He was, after all, imprinted himself, on the pre-adolescent girl with the long bronze curls who was currently sitting with Emily Uley in the office, sorting through the books.

Neither Embry nor Jake spoke for a while after that. It was a comradely silence; they had nothing to say but were comfortable with where they stood. Jake cursed when his phone rang, but when he saw the caller id he flipped it open and answered. "Yo, leach." Then immediately, "Aw, Bella, you know I didn't mean it like that." Pause. "Yeah, whatever. Put him on." Jake flipped the phone to speaker but turned the volume down to the lowest setting. "What?"

"You don't need to do this, Jacob," said a smooth, velvety voice. "We have everything under control."

Jake snorted. "Sure you do, dead man."

In a long suffering tone, "You are interfering with Alice's sight. Leave the rogues alone. We'll take care of them."

"They killed a man in Hoquiam two days ago," Jake said sharply. "I won't allow it, Edward."

"They won't hunt on your lands again," Edward promised. "Carlisle knows Emelyan. He and his mate are only passing through. They will not come back."

"They'll hunt somewhere else, then," said Jake. "We're taking them out."

A pause. "That would be a mistake," Edward said finally. "How badly do you want to lose a wolf?"

"Yeah, right. I might not have gone to college, but I can count. They have two. I have twenty."

"This coven isn't one you could take out with a hundred wolves. Let them go."

"No."

Another pause. Finally, "I'm putting Bella back on."

Jacob groaned. "Oh, no, you're not trying that one on me. Sorry, no. I'll drop Nessie off at eight. I'm out."

"Jake—"

Jake snapped the phone shut. In the office, Nessie and Emily paused and peaked out the window. "Right," said Jake brightly. "Who wants ice cream?"

Embry and Jake ate a gallon of Neapolitan each. Nessie had a scoop from Jake's tub, but what she really wanted was blood. So she fed from Jake's wrist while Embry looked away, disgusted, and ashamed of his disgust. As an imprint of the pack, Embry had a strong urge to protect her, but almost as strong was his ingrained need to kill Cold Ones. In an easier world she'd be human and so would I. In an easier world she'd be Jake's daughter and I'd be her Uncle Embry.

They didn't live in an easy world, Embry decided, scraping the last smears of vanilla from the plastic tub. He forced himself to watch Nessie finish feeding. When she was done, she wiped the blood from her mouth, then drew a folded paper from her back pocket and tugged shyly on Jake's arm. Then Embry stretched out his arms and stood with a groan. "I gotta go."

"Later, man," said Jake before returning to the drawing Nessie was showing him. Embry stole a quick glance at it before he left. Most three-year-olds drew shapeless blobs with fat crayons, leaving their parents to compliment the picture while simultaneously attempting to figure out what it was; only Nessie would draw a scale model of what Jacob's skull might look like, approximated from clandestine measurements of his face. Embry chuckled.

As soon as he was in the trees he phased wolf. Collin and Nick were patrolling now around the edges of La Push. He touched base with Collin, briefly. An unarticulated question passed between them. It meant something along the lines of Is there danger? Is everything as expected? Or perhaps, Are our mates and families safe?

Collin appraised his surroundings before he answered. Embry caught a flash of the yellow Clearwater house, and then trees. Yeah, we're good, Collin said. And don't talk to Nick. He snickered, communicating an image of twelve-year-old Eli nursing a bleeding tail and the pale speckle-furred wolf Nick stalking off haughtily, ears flat.

Again?

Twice. He got Leah too, and Seth had to lay down a beta-command. It's his fucker of a dad. He's been at it again.

Nick scowled through the packmind, knowing that Collin and Embry were discussing him. He hated people talking about him and it rankled him that they pitied him so much. Yes, his dad beat him, he thought defiantly at Embry and Nick, and one day he'd kill the bastard in return. Now back off. The wash of pity was sharper this time, and Nick's wolf lashed out at his brothers, snapping and snarling through the mental link. Embry retreated and phased human. He'd give Nick what little privacy he could, then.

Although he knew Nick was embarrassed by their pity and ashamed of his life, Embry couldn't help but feel sorry for the younger boy. It wasn't easy living like that, with an absent mother and an abusive, alcoholic father. Embry saw it too often with rez kids whose families had no money, no opportunities, and little love between them. He stifled a growl. Nick Mora might want to kill his father, but Embry might get there first. Nick was a good kid when he wasn't being beaten down and Embry liked him.

The door was open when Embry jogged up the wooden steps to his house. That meant mom was home. At twenty, Embry still lived with his mother, although not in his childhood home and he owned the house. It was a situation which worked out reasonably well for both of them. Neither Mrs. Call's small salary as the secretary of the fishing resort nor Embry's paycheck from the auto shop was enough to pay for a house on its own, but together, and supplemented by Embry's 'werewolf stipend' from the Elders, they squeaked by.

Mom was sitting in the tiny living room when he walked in. She didn't look at him, despite the carefully measured noises he was sure to make, knowing how much she hated him sneaking in silently. "Hi, mom."

She still wouldn't look at him, but finally she said, "You left again last night."

Shit. He had. And he'd leave again, tonight, but how was he supposed to tell his mom that he had patrol every night until the vampires were dead or gone, when she didn't even know he was a werewolf?

"You said you wouldn't," she cried, her voice breaking. "You promised me."

"I know. But mom, I—"

"Don't do that!" she screamed. "You promised, and you went anyway. What's so wrong with staying in your bedroom all night and sleeping? Or at least, tell me if you're going to go out. Why do you have to sneak around?"

"I'm sorry, mom, but I'm—"

"—an adult, I know," she finished bitterly. "Just go." Embry went. He didn't look back, so he never saw her mournful eyes following him up the narrow stairs.

Embry's relationship with his mother was unstable at best. In fact, Liana Call was unstable at best. He had begun to recognize her problems long before he first phased, but that change had only magnified her deficits and brought out her very worst.

It was partly his fault; nightly patrols since he was sixteen had forced him to sneak out his window to evade his mother, leaving her wondering where she had gone wrong as a parent. It was hard on any mom, to see her child lying to her face, slowly failing in school, evading her, abandoning her. But Liana was a single mother; everything was harder on her. Embry was all she had in the world and she felt like she was losing him.

True, it was cruel, but the secret had to be kept, and even Embry agreed that it was too dangerous for her to know. And if Liana felt like she was losing her son, phasing had made Embry wonder if he'd ever really had his mother. He'd always assumed his father was Makah and maybe an abusive bastard like Nick's dad, and that was why they left. But then he phased and learned that couldn't possibly be true. The wolf genes could only be passed through the Quileute, and because Embry was half Makah, his wolf gene must be incredibly strong. This meant his father was almost certainly a direct male-line descendent of Taha Aki—in other words, Billy Black, Quil Ateara IV, or Joshua Uley. So Liana Call had cheated with a married man, then moved to La Push to be near him. And once there, she had ignored him for twenty years. Embry knew his mother was clingy, spiteful and flighty, but it hurt to see her flaws spread out before him like an open book.

It was good that the thick upstairs carpet muffled his stomping feet, Embry thought as he trudged into his room, because he really didn't want another confrontation with Liana. He threw himself face first onto his bed, which was far too short for his large frame. Sleep was something of a precious commodity these days—hell, he hadn't slept a full night since before school started for the younger wolves. Tonight wasn't an exception.

Embry untangled himself from his pillows to set his alarm for one a.m. Then he paused, contemplating. Next to the alarm clock on his desk were three framed pictures. The first showed Embry and his mom; the second, with Jake and Quil; the third, with his brothers and sisters of the pack. Each showed something he cared deeply about. Soon, maybe, he would add a fourth picture. In a pink frame, maybe. Didn't girls like pink?

Embry fell asleep dreaming of Mollie Ember.

What was it about Embry that wouldn't let her forget him? It was incredibly frustrating to Mollie that she couldn't answer this simple question. Mollie liked direct answers, accurate and easily available. Puzzles were fun, but only so long as she could solve them, and she didn't think she was making any progress on this one.

Mollie sighed and stomped over to the window. She opened it, letting the frigid November air circulate through her small first-floor bedroom. There was snow falling tonight, and she slid open the screen and stuck her hand outside, letting the icy flakes fall and melt on her clenched fist. On an impulse, she stuck her entire head outside the window. The night was dark and cloudy and the moon—a fat, yellow waxing gibbous—was low, just visible on the tops of the trees. The Ember home was on the very edge of the forest.

Just as Mollie pulled her head back inside, a flash of movement on the edge of the tree line caught her eye. She abruptly jerked her head up, banging it against the heavy glass window. "Aah!"

Rubbing her head, she scowled at the shape in the darkness. It slunk closer, and she could see now—it was a wolf. But not one like she'd ever seen before; it was easily six feet tall at the shoulder, lanky and graceful. "I didn't think they made wolves like that," Mollie whispered, her breath turning into a cloud of white steam as she spoke. The wolf stared at the house. Then it howled eerily and turned on its tail, disappearing into the trees.

In the split second that followed, Mollie decided something which she later realized ranked high among the stupidest things she'd ever done. She grabbed her parka and a flashlight, and then she climbed out her window to follow the wolf.

The wind was biting on her cheeks and nose, and the snowflakes settled in her hair and on her eyelashes. The flashlight went on immediately. Right in front of her, where the wolf had been, was a disturbed patch of snow, but no animal tracks. It looked brushed over. Something or someone had obviously been here but didn't want anyone to know who or what it was.

But that was crazy, for a wolf. Mollie wasn't an animal behavior expert by any means, but she knew that wolves weren't that smart. Mollie followed the swept-track path as it led farther and farther into the woods. Then suddenly, it stopped. Mollie's flashlight was weak; all she could see in any direction was more uniform forest, and then her own faint and swiftly disappearing tracks back the way she came.

When the snow started seeping into her toes and her feet felt wet and numb, Mollie realized she was only wearing slipper boots. It was so, so cold. She twisted around, looking for her trail of footsteps. But the snow was blowing wildly, and she couldn't see anything. This was stupid. Incredibly stupid. She hadn't found the wolf, and now she was lost.

Mollie fumbled for her cell phone, but something hard and rounded bumped her at shoulder level and she shrieked and dropped it. Scrambling around in the snow for her only lifeline to civilization wasn't high on Mollie's list of Things I Want to Do at Two AM, but she needed that phone. Eventually she founded it.

Just as she was standing back up, the object bumped her again and then extended its tongue and licked her and she realized it was a snout—a wolf snout. Big wolf. Wild wolf. Silky silver wolf, and pretty—no. Back away slowly. Now that she'd found what she was looking for, she wasn't sure if she'd rather not have. Scratch that, she knew she'd rather not.

Matching Mollie step for step, the wolf edged forward and then bumped her a third time. "You're awfully tame, for a wolf," she said cautiously. The wolf nodded eagerly and licked her again. She tentatively reached forward and scratched his ear. The wolf whined softly. Then it tossed its head and plodded a few steps left. Mollie watched it regretfully. She didn't really want to be left alone now that she knew it was friendly. But the wolf paused where it was and whined and tossed its head again. "You want me to . . . follow you?"

The wolf flapped its head exuberantly. Mollie decided to abandon her common sense and just go with it. Some intuitive feeling told her that this wolf knew what it was doing. So she followed. The silver wolf paused and looked backwards every few steps as if to make sure she was still there. She must have gone farther than she remembered on the way in, because by a certain point they'd been walking for half an hour with no sign of a stop. Just when she was beginning to doubt the wolf's sense of direction, she began to see more familiar trees and rocks and she knew they were nearing the Ember house.

Then she tripped. It was a root, or a rock, maybe, but in any case it sent her tumbling to the ground and rolling down a shallow hill. She hit the bottom at an awkward angle and a sickening crack echoed through the otherwise silent forest. On the ground by her face was her cellphone; it must have fallen from her pocket. She tried to reach for it but her arm wouldn't cooperate, and her leg just hurt so much.

The second-to-last thing Mollie remembered was warmth, which was funny given the situation, but not that funny because it was a symptom of hypothermia and Mollie really didn't want to die. The last thing she remembered was being rocked back and forth and a voice murmuring, "Shh, shh. You'll be okay. Everything's going to be okay."

Life could become exceedingly tiring when given eighteen centuries to run its course, but Anastasia was not yet tired of fucking Emelyan. She arched into his thrusts and they screamed together as they wrestled on the snowy forest floor. When they were done, Emelyan dressed in the clothes of the dead hiker whose body, already drained, they had crushed in their lovemaking, but Anastasia remained naked.

She was small and lithe with flowing black hair and Mediterranean features. Her skin was as white and hard as that of her mate. Constant movement had kept her from ossifying; she had not sat on a throne since the early days of her first life. Emelyan was fond of recounting the years he impersonated a dead Tsar and nearly stole the crown of Imperial Russia, but Anastasia really had been a princess, in the long ago and far away.

Emelyan was big for a vampire and ugly. Anastasia once told him he looked like a baboon, or maybe just a Russian peasant. Emelyan laughed and said slyly he was a peasant, when he wasn't a Romanov. He was young, too, for a vampire. Back in his long ago and far away, she changed him from what little he had been into the creature he was now. Her own creator was long destroyed. Anastasia hadn't ripped his head off herself, but she had thrown it into the flames.

Naked and gleeful, she hurled herself on the forest floor and rolled through the snow. Anastasia left a palpable trail of destruction in her wake and where she struck the trees. A rough granite hand descended on her breast. She froze for an instant, breathing with Emelyan and the earth. Then she ran, fleeing from her lover into the icy night, laughing softly all the way. Eventually she let Emelyan catch her and throw her to the ground. They fought and bit and scratched, and they wrestled again in the snow, this time stopping not even for the sun.

When they finally resurfaced, Emelyan caught a hiker and they both fed. Then without a word they turned northeast and ran. Seattle was waiting.