Renesmee laughed at my dumbfounded expression.
"C'mon!" she said, dragging toward the staircase.
"Don't break my daughter, Nessie!" Alice called with a laugh. I felt relief. Thankfully, Alice wasn't giving up on calling me her daughter. "We'll be….er….hunting." Alice's eyes darted quickly to my face making sure she hadn't frightened me. I felt calm, but I wasn't sure if that was me or Jasper's power working on me.
"Don't worry," Edward called behind his shoulder as he went out into the backyard. "It's you."
Upstairs, Renesmee dragged me to—what Alice had once told me was—Rosalie and Emmett's room. Once inside, she closed the door, grabbed a pink phone, which I assumed was Rosalie's, off of a vanity and placed it on the bed where she sat. Nessie motioned for me to sit by her.
"Are you afraid of werewolves?" she asked me. The question might've sounded silly to anyone who hadn't had my day, but her expression was serious and cautious.
"Are these good werewolves?" I asked. "They won't attack me, will they?"
Renesmee laughed. "Of course not!" she giggled. "I'm sure not Jake, Seth, and even Leah will love you."
"Who are they?" I ventured to ask.
"Well, Jacob Black's sorta my best friend. Werewolves have this thing, like a literal type love at first sight, only a lot stronger and sorta different. The love could be parental, friendly, or love love. They call it imprinting. When Jake first saw me, he imprinted. We've become amazing friends ever since. He and Bella took me on my first hunt where I caught a buck twice the size of his, only he hates to admit it."
"And Leah?" The way Nessie had said her name, I didn't think she was liked much by the Cullens.
"Leah Clearwater," she began, "is well…Leah. She can be annoying and mean and she really isn't our greatest fans. And she has major anger management problems. The only reason she's here is because her brother, Seth's here." Then, she looked deep in thought for a moment. "And some other reason that I just know they keep from me. Wish I knew… But anyways, I doubt any of them would hurt my best girl friend." She nudged me.
I noticed there was one person she hadn't explained.
"Who's Seth?" I asked her.
She laughed yet again. "Can't believe I forgot Seth!" she exclaimed. "Seth Clearwater is like the brother you hate to admit you've always wanted. He's hilarious and real nice. He was actually the first one to like us, the vampires, their mortal—or shall I say immortal—enemies. The friendship that sprung up between him and my father before I was born spread throughout the family." She shrugged. "He's a heck of a lot nicer than Leah, I'll tell you that." Nessie laughed.
"Are there only three werewolves in Forks?" I asked. I seemed really interested in the werewolves at this point.
"No," she answered. "Jacob left the original pack which is down in La Push. Sam was being stupid—he wanted me to be destroyed along with my mother!—and Jacob wouldn't hear of it."
"And what did you do when you found out about it?"
"Oh, I didn't know until long after I was born."
"You mean, Bella was still carrying you during all this?"
"Of course!" she said it like it was obvious. "No wolf is allowed to destroy the object of another wolf's imprinting. Anyway, no one had a clue about how I would turn out—if I'd be good or bad—so Sam Uley wanted me destroyed. This, of course, would have meant destroying my mom to get to me. Jacob detested the idea so he left and formed his own pack. He was alone at first but Seth quickly followed. Leah came right after her brother."
"Wow," I said.
"Yeah, it all seemed pretty amazing to me. I can't even imagine if I'd been there…"
There was a long silence. Then, my eyes fell on the phone that was at Nessie's knees.
"What's the phone for?" I asked her.
"Remember how I told you about imprinting?" she asked.
I nodded.
"Well, it's emotionally painful for them to go without seeing the object of their imprinting even for a day. Jake's gone almost a whole week without seeing me and, to be honest, I really miss him too. We just weren't sure if it would be safe to have you and the werewolves here, we wanted them to come once you were prepared. You know, so you wouldn't get freaked out if he had to phase."
"Ah," I said. They did care.
"Nessie," I said, "you know how your mom's a shield and your dad can read minds?"
She nodded.
"Did you get a power like that?"
Renesmee pressed her hand to my neck and suddenly, my mind filled with a memory that wasn't even mine. A memory of Renesmee when she was younger. Next to her was a large, russet brown wolf and to her other side was Bella Cullen.
"Jacob, Bella, and you?" I asked. She nodded and I returned to her memory.
They were in a forest and I watched as Renesmee took down a large buck and started to drink his blood.
"Your first hunt?" I recalled. She laughed and nodded.
It was snowing as I watched as her and Jacob—now back in his human form—argued over whose buck was bigger. She was right, hers had been slightly larger.
When the memory drifted to a close, I stared in awe at Nessie's face. As I half expected she would, Renesmee Carlie Cullen laughed.
"What do you think?" she asked me.
"Astonishing," I replied.
"I can place any memory or any thought into anyone's mind at any time I choose only with my touch." She poked my hand for emphasis and I caught a glimpse of my surprised face in my head. "I can break any shield—like Bella's for example—and I project thoughts instead of reading them like Edward does. Carlisle has a theory—he says that their powers got reversed in me because I can do the exact opposite of what they can.
"Now," she said, "let's give the werewolves a call."
She dialed a number on the phone and I could hear the ringing.
"Hello?" I heard a gruff voice say. Nessie's face brightened up like a child on Christmas morning—not that I'd ever seen such a thing outside of pictures.
"Hey, Jake!" she said enthusiastically.
I let her continue with her conversation without interruptions.
"Yes, yes, Jacob, she knows… She guessed like Bella did… I told you, Jake! Jasmine Isabella Cullen… I know! Isabella had to be in there somewhere, she guessed just like my mom did! … Yes, yes, Jacob, of course you helped her… You know I'll never believe that, no matter how many times you, Bella, and Edward tell me so! … Stop pushing your luck or I'll bite you… I know I'm not venomous, the phrase just makes me laugh because of the irony… Yes, that's why I called, silly! Come, now! … Yes, yes, I want Seth to come too…. Go ahead, bring Leah. Maybe she'll soften up with a human around." Renesmee winked at me and laughed. "All right, Jake, see you in a few!"
"They're coming?" I asked her.
"Oh, they are definitely coming."
Renesmee took my hand and led me back out of Rosalie's room—after putting the phone back—and down the stairs. We flipped through the thousands of channels on the Cullens' Korean television until the rest of the family came back from their hunt. All their eyes were an even lighter shade of gold than I remembered. Their eyes must darken with thirst.
"You are observant, aren't you, Jasmine?" Edward said. I should've known he'd be listening. "You deserve Bella's name somewhere in you, you've made a lot of the inferences that she did."
After some more chatting and flipping through channels, the door bell rang. Renesmee stood up and ran to it, Edward and Bella at her heels. I had no clue how I was able to catch her even turning the knob on the door. They were so fast, their movements blurred in front of my eyes. A whole eighteenth of a second had past when Nessie shouted Jacob's name and threw herself out the door—with and expression that brought out the two year old in her—with her eyes wide open to embrace her werewolf friend. Jacob and Nessie came through the door together. It was amazing how tall he was.
"Nice to finally meet you, Jasmine," he said to me. Jacob put Renesmee down on the floor, shook my hand, and picked her up again. His skin was hot! It might've been 108 degrees! Definitely not a normal temperature. But then again, was anything normal today? No, not really.
"Hey, Jasmine," a female voice called. A statuesque, beautiful, tan woman stepped through the doorway. This—I knew by the way the Cullens eyes her warily and by the way she returned the stares with a look that could kill—was Leah. She stooped down and pecked my cheek. "She is beautiful, Alice!" she said turning to my pixie of a mother. "More adorable than you said." I blushed at this compliment.
"Isn't she?" Alice squealed. Before I might've thought possible, her cold, stone arms were around me and she pecked my forehead.
"Where's Seth?" Edward asked.
"Like you don't know!" someone teased from the outside. Edward laughed. The person's voice sounded kind and beautiful to me. It was the voice of a childish man, a voice I'd never heard before. Listening to the voice that sounded, probably, much more alluring in my ears than anyone else's made me blush and drop my head. I hoped no one had noticed. Why did the voice of this… this stranger give me butterflies in my stomach? Why, I couldn't tell. I just looked up through my eyelashes as Seth Clearwater stepped through the doorway.