Chapter 18

Trust Issues

I decide not to call Leah right away. I can at least show a modicum of respect for this family that is sheltering me during my fugitive state. I find something new to distract me. I've been wondering how Gregorio is doing with his vegan diet. It's not something we took the time to discuss last time we were together, and we haven't talked since. I wouldn't blame him if he slacked during these stressful times – he picked a bad week to give up humans – but he's not a man who easily admits defeat, so I'm sure he's struggling either way.

I've been racking my brain for a way to offer better support to him and others like him as they adjust to their new lifestyle. One day the answer quite literally smacks me in the face. Alice and I have taken a daytrip to Olympia, the state capital, to go sightseeing and shopping. I've just purchased a pair of supple, black, leather pants that look amazing on me, and Alice and I are standing outside a tattoo parlor, lamenting the fact that their process would never work on our stony skin. A pale, yellow flyer detaches from the window and blows on the moist wind straight into my face.

I pull the thing off and read it. It's a flyer reminding anyone who cares that the weekly Alcoholics Anonymous meeting will be held in a local church basement that Wednesday. 'All are welcome,' it says. I'm transfixed by it.

"Drinking problem, Elie?" Alice teases.

"As a matter of fact…if things go our way, there's going to be a whole bunch of us with a drinking problem, aren't there."

"Huh?"

"Never mind. Just an idea. I'll let you know if anything comes of it," I say, folding the paper and tucking it into my back pocket.

Back at the house, I borrow Emmett's laptop and Google 'Alcoholics Anonymous twelve steps.' I've heard about these before. They're twelve steps that addicts follow to help them fight their addiction. Isn't that precisely what human blood is to vampires – an addiction? These steps are supposed to be very effective. Maybe this is what I've been looking for.

I read over all twelve steps. I can't help but notice that I've unwittingly worked through some of them myself. Especially the first few, which all have to do with God: accept a power greater than ourselves, check; fess up to the exact nature of our sins, check; ask forgiveness of these shortcomings, check. I'd always thought of this God as Father Pawel's God, but I suddenly realize that he's my God too. He sent Father Pawel through the field to me that day. He's been with me this whole time. How else could I have gotten through it all? I smile. I like having a God.

The later steps are a bit dicier. Number eight says to make a list of all persons we have harmed, and be willing to make amends to them all. Yikes. That could take forever. Besides, most of them are dead. Ten's not any better – promptly admit whenever we are wrong. Yeah, right. Still, I make note of them. They could be helpful to other vampires. I can't deny that the steps I have followed have helped me tremendously. Surely this could be translated into a program for vampires. I need to learn more about the steps. See how they work in real life. I'm going to that meeting. I pull the paper out of my pocket. The meeting's tomorrow.

The next night, I dress incognito – it's supposed to be anonymous, right? I put on baggy jeans and an oversized flannel shirt and top it off with a baseball hat. I exit the bathroom and go downstairs and call out goodbye on my way out. Emmett's watching baseball on the TV in the front room. He turns from the game as I reach the front door.

"How do you do that?" he asks.

"Do what?"

"Wear a big, sloppy shirt and a baseball hat and still look so hot?"

"I take it Rosalie is out," I say.

"Yup," he grins.

"Bye, Emmett."

"Bye, hot-girl-who-desperatley-wishes-I-was-single-so-she-could-do-me-right-now."

"Whatever you have to tell yourself to get through the day, Emmett," I sigh, rolling my eyes as I walk out the door.

The meeting is interesting and eye-opening. The underlying philosophy of AA is that by sharing and listening to others' experiences, addicts can better understand and accept their challenges. They learn from each other. I tried to accomplish the same thing with the testimonials I included in my book. Sitting face to face with these people and listening to them spill their guts is a very powerful thing. I wonder if I'd be able to tell my story to a group of strangers. I'm not sure. I stay silent at the meeting, but somehow walk away feeling strangely bonded to the people there.

On my way back to Forks, I think about the possibility of organizing support groups like this for vampires. We'll be much more spread out geographically, but we can also travel faster than humans, so maybe regional meetings will be possible.

I'm starting to realize that there are a multitude of resources out there that have nothing to do with B.I.T.E. Maybe I've gotten everything I can from my Romanian brethren, and its time to move on. I don't really need them anymore, and they may not want me. Maybe this is the perfect time to cut the ties. Make a clean break. I start to feel weightless, like an oppressive blanket has been lifted from me. Then an iron anchor attaches to my ankle and pulls me down.

Gregorio.

B.I.T.E. was pretty much his entire life before I came along. His ties wouldn't be so easily severed. Would he even be willing to sever them if it came down to it? What if I left B.I.T.E., and he was forced to choose between us? Which would he choose?

Is that really such a difficult question to answer? Let's see – who's he with right now? Not me. And during our fight in Greenland, he certainly seemed to choose B.I.T.E. Of course, I realize that he's in Romania right now looking out for my interests, and that in the end he realized he was wrong in Greenland and came walking after me, but he's never risked his standing at B.I.T.E. along the way. He's always there for me as long as he can smooth things over with the organization first. Like when he took three days to set things up for Siberia before disappearing with me. Like when he convinced me that we need to keep our relationship a secret. Wouldn't want to ruffle any B.I.T.E. feathers.

He wants it both ways. He wants it all. But what if one day he actually has to choose?

Ugh. Why am I doing this to myself? Why can't I just be happy knowing that he's crazy in love with me, and I'm crazy in love with him? Why isn't that enough? Why do I torture myself with hypotheticals? I wish he was here. If he was here, I could look him in his soft, dark eyes and hold him and feel his love and not scare myself by thinking up scenarios that haven't even happened yet. If he was here. Which he's not. He's in Romania. With B.I.T.E. Ugh.

I'm not doing this! I've second guessed him before and nearly thrown him away. I love him. Nothing's going change that, so I may as well trust him – with everything – or this isn't going to work. And I want it to work. I need it to work. So that's it. No more doubts.

I've reached the Cullens' house. I walk in to find Alice, Jasper, Carlisle and Rosalie. They all look at me strangely when I walk in.

"What?" I ask.

All heads turn toward Alice, who bites her lip.

"What," I demand more forcefully. She's seen something. She's finally fricking seen something, and she doesn't want to tell me what it was.

"I had a vision of you with Gregorio," she says and stops. She doesn't look directly at me.

"And--" I prompt. Her reluctance seems rather ominous.

Alice hesitates.

I'm getting pissed.

"Give it to her straight, hun," Jasper tells her, picking up on my impatience.

Alice gives it to me straight. "Well, it was just a quick flash of you and Gregorio and another vampire, an older man – salt and pepper hair, good looking."

"Viktor," I murmur.

"Yes, I believe so," Carlisle says.

"You're in a plain, grey room with a long table,"

"A conference room at headquarters," I explain.

Alice doesn't say anything else.

"Is that it?" I ask, knowing that it isn't.

Alice shakes her head. "The older gentleman is standing in front of you, looking down with a scowl. He looks angry; his eyes are flashing. And you…you're kneeling and bent prostrate on the ground in front of him."

"Kneeling? Am I groveling?"

Alice shrugs her shoulders and looks down to the ground. "I think so," she says.

"What about Gregorio? What's he doing?" I can't imagine him groveling. I'm not sure I can even handle hearing Alice say it.

"He's standing behind Viktor...…he's smiling," she says, finally looking up at me with a pained expression, as if it's hurting her to tell me.

"Smiling?" I say. "You mean like a grimace, like this?" I say and screw my face into the awful, strained kind of smile Gregorio tried to give me when he told me he was moving to Siberia.

"No," Alice says, shaking her head mournfully. "It was more like this," she says and her eyes light up. Half her mouth curves upward just before the other side joins it, as if she'd tried to fight a smile and lost. I've seen Gregorio do that a hundred times. He's really smiling. But why?

"Well, what was he looking at?" I ask, hoping that maybe there's a small monkey in the room, banging tiny, little cymbals.

"He was looking at you," Alice says regretfully.

"Me?" I'm dumbfounded. He's smiling at me groveling to Viktor? This doesn't make any sense. My mind races for an explanation. "Is he putting on show for someone?" I muse aloud.

Alice again shakes her spiky head. "Viktor's the only other person in the room, and his attention is all on you. Besides, Gregorio is behind him."

I'm starting to shake my head slowly from side to side. "There are glass walls in the conference rooms. There's no privacy. You never know who'll come along and peep in. He's probably covering his ass just in case," I offer.

"Yeah, maybe," Alice says doubtfully.

I'm not convinced either, but I just vowed to trust Gregorio, so I'm going to assume that there's some reasonable explanation for the scene Alice just envisioned.

"Do you know when it happens?" I ask in a suddenly dry voice.

"No, it was just a quick flash, and that's all I got."

I nod absently and ask, "Any new visions of any of you? Any danger?"

"No," Alice says almost apologetically.

"Good, good," I nod. I mean it, but I still sound like a zombie when I say it. "I'm going to go out for something to eat. My throat's parched."

"Okay," Alice says gently. Everyone else looks at me way too kindly as I step outside.

I don't think about it. I think about catching an owl, surprising him and catching him before he can fly off. I think about sinking my teeth through his downy feathers. Catching an owl at night should prove enough of a challenge to keep my mind occupied. I'm not going to think about what Alice just told me. No more second guessing. Trust. No doubt. No doubt. No doubt.

*****

Every day I ask Alice if she's seen anything new. Every day she says, 'No.' Her visions don't always come true. They change as circumstances change. I want her to see something new that will completely discount that last vision. I'm sure it's going to change. Probably just a fluke, anyhow.

I've got to keep busy.

I work furiously on adapting the twelve steps for vampire use. The next AA meeting is tomorrow already. Another week has gone by. I haven't heard a thing from Gregorio. He made me get rid of my phone entirely in Paris, just in case B.I.T.E. had tampered with it, so I knew communication would be sparse, but ever since Alice's vision, I'm desperate to hear his voice. I think I'll go to that AA meeting, see how Sabrina's new job is going.

I call Leah. It would probably be rude not to follow up with her at all.

"Hello, may I please speak to Leah?"

"This is her."

"Sorry, didn't recognize you without Seth translating."

"Oh hi, Elie," she says, her voice warming.

"Hi. Look, sorry about not calling sooner. Edward had a little talk with me after last time, and he thinks it's best for Bella if we don't hang out."

"Yeah, I got the same lecture from Jacob. He's forbidden me to talk to you. He's also mad about our joke on Seth. He thinks I 'betrayed a pack member for a foreign bloodsucker.' Plus, he hates you."

"Right," I say and pause awkwardly.

"So…when do you want to get together?" Leah asks brightly.

I laugh. I like this girl. I like her a lot.

"I thought Seth told me that you had to obey a direct order from the pack leader," I say.

"Only when they use this special mind thing. Jake's a pussy about invoking it. His orders are more like strong suggestions. I do what I want."

I love this girl.

I take a second to think. Why not meet with her? As long as we go somewhere that Bella won't see us, it shouldn't make any difference to Edward.

"I have a thing in Olympia tomorrow night," I say. "Would you be up for meeting me in the city for coffee afterwards? You can drink it, and I can smell it."

"Sure," she says. "I have something I've been wanting to do in Olympia, anyhow."

"Great," I say and we set plans to meet at a coffee house around the corner from my meeting. She agrees not to transform into a wolf again until after we meet, and I agree to avoid Edward; that way, they won't be able to read our minds until it's too late.

*****

Sabrina's job is going well. There's a cute guy in the office, but she's not ready to date. I pick up a few points at the meeting that will help me polish off the twelve steps for veggie vampires. The meeting ends, and I wait for Leah at the coffee shop. The beans smell magnificent.

I've never seen Leah in her human form before. I know I'm looking for a dark haired, ruddy-skinned girl from the Quileute tribe that resides in La Push, but I'm unprepared for the stunning beauty that plops down in the chair across form me. Leah, of course, knows exactly what I look like, although the baseball cap seems to have thrown her.

Her hair is cropped short to keep her wolf fur manageable when she transforms. It hangs loose around her face in a darling bob that highlights her high, sharp cheekbones and captivating, chocolate brown eyes. She's not bulky like the wolf boys, but she's not stick thin like most vampire women I know either. She's healthy and athletic-looking. She's got curves.

"Leah, you're gorgeous!" I gush admiringly.

She exhales a small, embarrassed snort and looks down as if not used to being complimented. Come on – how could she not be fielding amorous praise from guys all the time? I'm a straight vampire, and I almost want to make a play for her.

I don't want to embarrass Leah more, so we get down to business. We sit far from the other customers in the sparsely populated coffee house and speak low, so that no one can overhear our conversation. I'm sure they'd probably just think we were tripping on something if they could hear.

Leah tells me the legend and the truth behind the La Push werewolves. They are completely different from cold-blooded, European werewolves. The current pack seems particularly soft-hearted. Leah willingly outlines the history of their relationship with the Cullens, but when I ask about Jacob and Renesmee, she clams up just like everyone else. I try to push her on it, but she balks.

"You must respect my need to keep some things secret," she says.

"Of course," I tell her.

"Besides," she says with a wry smile. "There are some things you really don't want to know."

I nod. I know what she's talking about. For example, I wish I didn't know about Alice's blasted vision. I wish she'd never had it, and I wish she'd never told me about it. It doesn't do me a damned bit of good knowing about it, since I don't know what it means. Except buried deep in my consciousness, I do know what it means – it means that Gregorio is going to be forced to make a choice, and he chooses B.I.T.E. Unless Alice misread something. I'm sure she must have.

Next I ask Leah about the future of the wolves. This is very interesting. They actually have a chance of becoming fully human again. When they are no longer needed to protect against vampires, they can change back. This is what Leah wants to do. She's an abnormality, being the first known female werewolf, and she hasn't gracefully adjusted to the lifestyle. She hates it. She knows about our plans to convert vampires to a more peaceful existence and hopes it will lead to the need for fewer werewolves in La Push.

Her eyes light up when she tells me why she came to Olympia today. She's looking into college. If she can ever break free of the wolves, she wants to move into a dorm or small apartment near campus and study art history at the state college. I see by her wide eyes that moving to Olympia and leaving the La Push community behind is a big, big deal for her. A brave thing to do. I hope she does it. I hope she moves to Olympia and goes to college. Yet another reason to push forward with the cause. Whatever the cost.

We finish the interview and part at the coffee shop. I tell her thanks, and I tell her how glad I am to have met her, but I don't say anything stupid like, 'Let's keep in touch.' I'll be leaving soon, and the chances of a vampire from Eastern Europe and a werewolf from the Pacific Northwest keeping in touch are not good.

I pit stop in the Olympic mountains on my way back. I catch bigger game than I've had in a while, but the owls continue to elude me. I park the van in the Cullens' driveway just as dawn is starting to break and head out to walk around their forest a bit. I tell myself it's because the approaching daylight might slow the owls down just enough, but I know that I'm really only delaying my return to the house. I don't want to hear Alice say 'no' again. Maybe if I don't appear too eager, I can force a vision – a reversal of the watching-the-pot-boil theory.

In the distance, through the deep purple haze and trees, I see Edward and Bella's small, stone cottage. I stop. I don't want to go anywhere near there. But something's different. It makes me stop and look a bit longer. I can see Edward and Bella in the main room through a window. Neither of them looks tense. Far from it. He is brushing her long hair, getting out the snarls. Her long, silky tendrils fall from the brush as he pulls it through. Her eyes are still two red dots, but they don't appear to be flaming. Her face is relaxed, peaceful. She may even be wearing a small, tranquil smile; it's hard to tell from this distance.

I should leave and stop watching, but something intrigues me about the scene. Besides, how many times has Edward tapped into my intimate moments by reading my mind? I stay and watch. And listen. In the quiet of the morning, I can hear Edward humming softly to his wife while he brushes her hair. She leans in and whispers something to him that I can't make out. He smiles. She laughs. He laughs.

What was it Gregorio once said to me – 'It all starts with a laugh.' Those two crazy kids are going to be alright.

I leave. I pass Rosalie on her way to the little house with Renesmee.

"Is Alice in?" I ask.

"Uh huh," Rosalie answers while the baby rubs the sleep out of her eyes.

I dash into the house and ask Alice if she's seen anything new. She hasn't.