Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Chapter 17

"Are you kidding me? Do you know how dangerous that was? What if a fight broke out between the two of you and she was hurt? What if the leech lost control and she…" Paul covered his face as he shook with anger.

"Paul, it's okay," I tried to reassure him.

"Yeah Paul lighten up. She's alive. We're alive. Everything's okay," Leah said lazily.

"The important thing is that she knows and she's not running away," Rosalie added.

"Yeah, you're a werewolf – a ginormous wolf. Are you as big as Leah?" I asked.

"I am way bigger than Leah," he growled, and that's when I noticed that his body was actually shaking.

Suddenly my body flew a hundred feet to my back porch, and Rosalie carefully set me down.

"Go inside right now and stay there," she muttered.

I watched as she walked out passed Paul toward the tree line as Leah stood in a defensive stance. When she disappeared, Paul took off running in the opposite direction and Leah transformed following after him.

…

I hadn't seen Paul for three days. Leah and Rosalie had come by yesterday to get her laptop, and they didn't mention anything about him. They pretended as nothing had happened, and I was beginning to think that none of it ever had. I'd wanted to tell Carol, but she hadn't been online; we really needed to exchange phone numbers, but I would end up calling her all the time to chat about random, mundane things. I needed to make new friends.

I'd had lunch with Jacob and Nessie and I made them play about twelve games of Uno with me. Tonight they were going on a 'date night' but I felt like that was an excuse to get away from me. Making friends – how does one even do that? Wait, I had done that. Emily and Quil and the others. I was an idiot.

I flinched when I picked up my phone as it rang in my hand.

"Hello?"

"Hey Rachel, it's Emily…"

"Hey! I was just about to call you, no joke."

"Really? Well we're all getting together again at JK's…"

"Great, what time?"

"Six, so see you there?"

"Yeah, see you at six!" I smiled. I felt so… giddy like a boy had just asked me out on my first date. I really needed to work on my social life – not the dating one, but the friendship kind.

I was ready to go in ten minutes, but I still had to wait at least thirty to be 'early' at the restaurant. I busied myself with sorting my bills and checking my emails. Nothing from Carol, and my water bill was unusually high. On my way out the door, I was surprised to see Paul sitting on the front steps. He jumped up startled and turned to look at me.

"Hey, you look nice," he nodded, scratching his head.

"Thanks, I'm going out-"

"With who?" he frowned.

"With ev-"

"Sorry, I shouldn't have asked. It's none of my business," he quickly shook his head. "Um, I came over to apologize for the other day."

"It's okay. I understand why you'd be angry," I shrugged.

"Well I wasn't really apologizing for that… I'm sorry that I didn't come back to explain everything, but what they did was stupid. You could have gotten really hurt," he said using a stern voice, giving me that condescending look.

"Right," I nodded, crossing my arms.

"Don't get mad. I was just telling you it wasn't safe!"

"I have to go. I'm late."

"Rachel…."

"Oh… my water bill was really high, and I think there might be something wrong with my pipes. Do you know a good plumber?"

"But that… Are you sure you haven't just taken a lot of showers and done a lot of laundry and dishes?"

"Maybe that's the problem," I huffed. "But no I've own a house before and my water bill wasn't normal. Just never mind, I'll call someone tomorrow."

"No, I'll have my guy look at it," he sighed. "Have a good night."

"Thanks," I waved before getting in my jeep.

At least now I didn't have to worry about being too early.

…

"Miss Rachel, can I have a slice of your pizza please?" Taylor asked quietly.

"Sure of course," I smiled placing one on his plate. Today he was dressed as a doctor, wearing one of his mother's white button-up blouses. Sam caught my eye and nodded thanking me for being kind to his son. His eyes flicked down to Taylor as he walked back to his seat, clearly finding him adorable.

"You clearly haven't been paying attention to Jackson this season," Quil challenged.

He and Embry had been arguing about some team; I hadn't been paying enough attention to get the gist of it. It had been a little awkward between me and Quil until Embry joked that he had dibs on taking me home.

"Hello Rachel?" Quil waved his hand in my face.

"Sorry, what?"

"We heard you had a little show with Leah and Rosalie…"

"Yeah, it was really informative," I nodded.

"Informative? That's a new one," he laughed.

"So how long have you guys been…"

"Informing?" Embry snorted. "I was sixteen."

"And the last of our group," Quil added, earning himself a jab from Embry.

"And Jacob?"

"He was right after me and before Embry. He had a rough time – I think the hardest besides Sam."

"Why? Did something go wrong?"

"Oh yeah, two words: Bella freakin Swan," Embry rolled his eyes.

"What did she do to him?"

"Tortured him basically though that wasn't her fault really… more Jake's…" Quil paused.

"I think we had a harder time than Jake – we were the ones who had to put up with him and listen to all of his whining," Embry nodded. "Then that times a thousand with the mind thing."

"See Bella went to school in Forks with the Cullens- they were pretending to be human."

"Then Bella and Edward start dating and then she got bitten by some other vampire"

"But Edward sucked out the venom so she didn't turn in to one-"

"Then the Cullens left because it was too dangerous for Bella-"

"Bella was broken and Jake just had to fix her-"

"Then a female vampire came for her because her mate was the one who had tried to kill Bella earlier, but the Cullens had killed him so she was going to do the same thing to Edward-"

"So they came back to Forks and the female vampire brought a whole newborn army-"

"And the Cullens asked us for help and we did because who can turn down killing vampires-"

"But then Bella married Edward and he knocked her up and had a human-vampire baby-"

"Then the head vamp-leaders and half the vampire population came here to Washington to fight over her because they thought she was a whole vampire child and those are illegal-"

"And they should be!"

"But we didn't get to fight anyone then and they left-"

"And fast forward fifteen years and we're here."

"Oh… okay…" I blinked, trying to think of a response. "So what happened to the baby?"

"You met her – she's Nessie," Quil spoke with a mouthful of food. "Jake imprinted on her, and they live with the rest of the Cullens."

"Oh… how many kids does she have then?" No wonder I was uncomfortable around her – half human, half vampire?

"Just the one," Embry shook his head. "It wasn't a… normal birth. Edward had to change her during it to keep her alive – to keep her from dying – ugh just not dead dead – to keep her."

"Anyways," Quil gave him a look. "Female vampires can't have babies. Male vampires apparently can with humans."

"Huh…"

"Yeah we don't get any of it either. Bella has always been weird."

"No I get it. If the rest of the Cullens are like Rosalie then I see why she liked them in the first place," I shrugged.

"Rosalie?" Embry choked.

"Are we talking about the same vamp?" Quil asked skeptically. "Blonde hair? Bitchy? No sense of humor?"

"Yeah, she's been really nice," I argued.

"Definitely a different Rosalie."

AN: Sooooo sorry this took me forever to update. I have no real excuse except that I've been writing something else... and this chapter isn't eventful but I'll try to update in a couple of days