Voila. Things get simpler from here, then much more complicated, then simple again. Uh, don't ask. Yah, so I just finished sketching this picture of me and my puppy… It's awesome. I have a Scottish Terrier, whose name is Maili Mae (Scottish spelling of Molly May). She's a 10 month old DOLL! I love her very much, and thus, Scottie was born as a character. Yeah, that's where I got the name for Scottie Evans. I also have a Welsh Terrier (6 months) named Maggie, and they were playing one day, and Maggie knocked Maili over unexpectedly, so Maili got her back by grabbing her by the collar and jerking her face into the cabinets. So, Maili got EVEN. I was emailing a friend, telling him about it, and instead of typing 'got EVEN', I typed 'got EVAN'. So, when I decided to write a story, my puppy and my type-o came to mind. Pretty cool huh? I think it is… And if you don't then oh well – YOU SUCK.
Hey guess what? I don't own Underoath, As I Lay Dying, or Atreyu. And if I did… I'd be freakin awesome.
Linkin Park – By Myself: "If I turn my back, I'm defenseless. But to go blindly seems senseless. If I hide my pride and let it all go on, they'll take from me till everything is gone. If I let them go, I'll be outdone. But if I try to catch them, I'll be outrun. If I'm killed by the questions like a cancer, then I'll be buried in the silence of the answer."
Chapter Twenty-One—Tag
Edward came back within minutes after Raab had left.
"It's difficult to get clothes for a girl…" He confessed. He managed to bring my sleep clothes and a few other things in a tight mesh black bag. He grabbed two pairs of jeans, my Underoath shirt, a dark red tank that had 'As I Lay Dying' on it, a pair of black shorts with Atreyu written on the leg (like my The Used shorts), and a black short cuffed sleeved button up shirt.
"Geez, went through the whole closet, didn't you?"
"No, I just grabbed the first six or seven things from your closet."
I shook my head as he set the bag next to the couch.
For the next day, I was at Edward's house. They were still "gone with Carlisle" and I had a week of excused absences for my "misfortunes". Nothing was aid on the Vivian/Reilly issue, but Malikai had become an almost everyday topic. Mostly, we were discussing that if he came after me, they'd fight him while Alice and Jasper got me out of the country. Rather than focusing on the bad, I interjected that if that should happen, I'd like to go to Belgium for the simple reason that they had VERY good chocolate. They all laughed.
When Friday rolled around, we were all back in school. Of course, everyone was asking me what happened, and all I could think was "What a bunch of idiots". See, when someone loses their entire family, it's definitely hard on them, and people don't have the common sense NOT to bring it up. The only person who had the most reasonable amount of sense was Jess. She nearly jumped some guy for asking me how Vivian died. I started to punch him in the face, but Jess pretty much beat me to it.
The end of that day steadily improved; I guessed everyone got the point. No one asked me about Vivian or Reilly, and no one mentioned them in front of me. I wasn't back to normal, however. I was still in a state of shock. No matter how much I thought about it, I didn't seem to understand that my parents were dead. Friday I went home with Edward, and he sat with me on the couch.
"Your house is finished. They replaced and repaired everything."
"Seriously?"
"Yep. Do you wanna go over there and see it?"
"YES."
When we arrived, everything was just as though nothing had ever happened, except there was a faint smell of dust. I tentatively went upstairs to my bedroom to see that everything had been cleaned. There was no blood all over the bed or floor. Everything was just as it had always been. In fact, it was a completely new bed; it was actually bigger, and it had a black cast iron frame.
"Wow…this is…great." I smiled. "I'm glad I didn't have to clean it all…"
Edward laughed.
"I wonder if there's any food left here…"
He gave me a strange look.
"What? You don't even have to eat, so you wouldn't get it. Do you have any idea how hungry I get?"
"I can imagine."
"Alright then."
"Well… Scottie, I have to go away again."
"You changed the subject to tell me that? Thanks, my day just got better."
"Well…We didn't exactly finish what we went there for, so now Carlisle has been called back, if you know what I mean."
I nodded my head.
"Scottie, I'm sorry. I promise I'll be back soon."
We walked downstairs to the door and he hugged me around the waist. I knew what was bound to come:Malikai. Always when Edward wasn't around, something bad happened. I was afraid that maybe Raab had miscalculated how long it'd take for him to regenerate, or maybe it went by faster that he expected. All I could focus on was what might happen…
"You'll be fine, okay?" He assured me.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized he was right. Raab couldn't have made an error. I felt better, knowing this.
"Yeah, I know."
"It's just because of the sunny weather."
"Mm-hmm." I nodded my head.
"I'll see you soon." Then he left.
I stared at the door for a moment, then turned and looked around the house. Everything was so much different… I felt as though I was standing in the middle of a crime scene. I began to feel kind of queasy when the door opened again. I turned to see Edward in the door way.
"Come with me." He said.
At first I wasn't sure what he meant, then he repeated, "Come with me."
And so I did. Edward and his family took me with them to some place way out in the middle of nowhere. Usually when you think "middle of nowhere", you imagine some deserted island that's not even on the map. But not this place… We ended somewhere way out in a forest, where a river wound through the trees. Edward told me that if we went far enough along the river, there was a rather large waterfall, and the river faded into a creek.
"Is this where you come when you…?"
"Yes…" He whispered, looking around.
The eight of us sat around and talked until after midnight. Finally, Carlisle and Esme stood.
"Well, Scottie, you'll have to forgive Esme and I, but it's about time the two of us head out… We're… rather hungry."
"Of course."
They left, delving deeper into the forest.
"Scottie, had you eaten before coming with us?" Alice asked.
"No, but I'm fine."
"Okay…I just thought I'd check, since you actually have to eat."
"Yeah. Thanks, Alice."
She smiled, then laid back on the tall grass.
"What time is it?" Jasper asked her.
"I don't know… two or three?"
"Three thirty." Emmett answered.
You'd figure there wasn't much to do around 3:30 in the morning in the middle of the woods. But actually, we talked for a long period of time, and at one point, Emmett decided he'd just push me over onto my side.
I sat back up and shook my head at him.
"You don't know what you're getting yourself into." I teased.
"Oh yeah?" He shoved me over again.
"Yeah." I stood up and backed away from him. He stood up, too, smirking.
"What? You wanna fight?" I teased him again. Edward leaned back on his elbows and smiled.
"Oh, this is gonna be funny…" He laughed. Rosalie yawned apathetically, and Jasper and Alice just sort of smiled and watched with interest.
"You're just a big stuffed teddy bear. I bet you're full of cotton." I poked him in the stomach. Of course, with skin that hard, there was no way he was a teddy bear stuffed with cotton. However, if he were a teddy bear stuffed with diamond-hard cement, that's a different story.
"Okay, right. I'm a teddy bear. And what are you?" He asked.
"Me? I'm a….a, uhh…" I wasn't sure.
"A rubber duck."
"What?"
"You heard me. Wimp."
"ME, a WIMP? Psh, please. I could take you and Edward at the same time." I crossed my arms. Before I could even get a response from Emmett, Edward ran and tackled me to the ground.
"You were saying?"
I grabbed his shoulders and pushed him up off of me, then tossed him away. I ran and jumped over him, then ran into Emmett, who clothes-lined me. I saw Edward running at me from the corner of my eye. I rolled backwards and onto my feet, then crouched and grabbed Emmett's foot and pulled him around in a circle, using him as a guard from Edward. Emmett stomped his foot down, taking me to the ground, then Edward grabbed my foot and dragged me around on the grass. I kicked my foot loose and then rolled back to my feet again. Edward started toward me, and I did a back-handspring away from him.
Wait…
I did a what?
"Uh…I didn't know I could do that." I said.
"It's a wolf-thing. You are a very agile, acrobatic creature, as you're finding." Edward said, still advancing. "Kind of like a cat."
I found myself growling at his remark. I figured that was natural wolf instinct, too. I took a step forward and crouched.
Edward stopped and smiled.
"Oh. You want to play that game?"
I growled at him again, in a non-threatening way, my canine teeth exposed. Edward crouched, too, and Emmett came from behind me and stood to my side, also crouching. Before I could formulate a plan, they both jumped at me, and I ducked, allowing them to collide with each other. Then, they both fell to the ground, tangled. I laughed at them and then shook my head. Edward reached up and grabbed my foot, and jerked me to the ground with them.
"That was cheap." Emmett said. "You're lucky we didn't land on you."
"Ew." I teased.
"Hey, now…" Edward gave me a shove and I stuck my hand in his face.
"Emmett…" Rosalie called. "It's time."
"Right. I'll see you guys later." He stood up, allowing Edward to fall off of him and across my legs. I looked at Alice and Jasper.
"We'll wait till dawn." Jasper said.
"That's when everything is moving. They're probably not going to find anything but maybe a dear… Usually we go out early to see what the pickings are, and by then it's dawn, and we all separate and meet back here. Emmett and Edward like bear…" Alice said.
I looked down at Edward. He shrugged.
"I'm actually tired…" I said, lying back on the grass.
"Go to sleep, then…" Edward said. "I'll stay here."
"On my legs?"
He rolled off of me then stood up and stretched. He sat back down next to me and smiled. About five minutes later, I dozed off.
Mudvayne – IMN: "All work and no play makes me sick; I wanna eat a bullet, carve myself, beat my face, catatonic, dig my brain, no pain, suffocate, stomach aches, don't give a f, I'm out, I'm done, f this sh. You've dug the hole I'm lying in. No one, no one could ever understand."