In the year 2020, Vampires took control of society and ordered all humans placed in vampire custody. The people who were not captured formed a Resistance movement, headed by the Human Council, who began to plan the Insurgence.
I am, of course, indebted to Stephenie Meyer for this world we all play in, and these characters we all adore. Additionally, I am indebted to hitntr01, who has graciously allowed me to use certain concepts from her wonderful story "In Need of Rescue", which constitute much of the background of my own story. These include: the language Vampiri, the Rules, the machines used to draw blood from humans, Manners Training, and the plot theme of Edward working as a guard at a facility holding humans. Thank you, hitntr01.
Chapter 30 – Life with Crazy, and Emily's visit
When I wake up the next day, Crazy is lying right next to me, staring at me from under her fringe of blonde bangs. She laughs at my startled expression.
"Yep," she giggles, "I'm still here. And that boy Jasper is still fine. How many of them do you have around here, anyway? So far, I've seen an Edward, Peter, Jasper, Emmett, and of course, Dr. Cullen. Good morning, Dr. Cullen!"
Carlisle is sitting in the chair next to my bed, and he's not looking terribly happy. "Good morning, Miss Wenda," he replies.
Oh, Lord. They're being formal with one another. Only he hasn't been able to get her last name out of her. Well, I'm not going to tell him.
I sit up, slip out of bed, and head for the bathroom. Carlisle is right behind me. And so is Crazy.
Carlisle and I start our morning routine, with Crazy leaning against the wall. "So," she begins, addressing Carlisle, "do you really come in here with her? Kinky, baby!"
"Wenda," I reply, "his house, his rules."
I somehow manage to get through my morning routine and get dressed with both observers in the bathroom with me. When I'm done, I go downstairs. Peter and Charlotte are already here, they're sitting downstairs. They're looking at me curiously, and I know they have questions. I smile hello and go straight for the kitchen.
Esme is waiting in the kitchen. She gives me a quick hug, sniffing my hair. "I was so worried when you were gone, Sweetheart," she says.
I nod and sit down. They're not wearing me down with the guilt trips.
After greeting Peter, Jasper, and Edward for the third or fourth time, Crazy dashes into the kitchen. She does love her men.
"So, what's on today's agenda?" she bubbles.
"I don't know. I would like to go down by the river and then watch the flames in the fireplace," I reply.
"Kinky and action packed," she sings back.
"If our lives are too boring," Jasper drawls, "perhaps madam would like to go someplace else?"
"Is that an invitation, big boy?" returns Crazy. I glance over at Jasper. He's wearing low slung jeans and a tight black t-shirt that shows his abs.
When I first got here, he usually came to the house wearing tan Dockers and a polo shirt or sweater. During Peter's first visit, months ago, Jasper had shown up in jeans and a dark t-shirt. I remember that I had to keep my eyes trained to his chin to keep from blushing; he looked so good in jeans and a t-shirt. He had never switched back to the Dockers outfits, and I had to keep my eyes focused on his chin or anywhere else in the room when he was around.
But back to the moment, and Crazy's interaction with Jasper. Emmett elbows Jasper, who gives him a sharp look in return.
Emmett turns to me and asks, "Just one question. How come we couldn't smell or hear you in the club?"
"That's two questions, cutie, and the answer is simple. Baby's a walking gift," giggles Crazy.
"Sorry, Emmett. That was really kind of a parlor-trick use of an important Resistance strategy. I have dedicated my gifts to the Resistance, at the Human Council's request. I'm not at liberty to discuss them," I glare meaningfully at Crazy.
Rosalie strolls in from the patio, wearing her usual bored expression. She looks gorgeous as always, wearing a wraparound blue dress that showed off her figure perfectly.
"Hi, Bitch!" sings Crazy, peering around the doorway into the living room. Emmett gives a low growl, and I kick Crazy's ankle.
I choke down a stack of pancakes with syrup and some bacon, and then we head outside. Once we're on the patio, I try to convince Crazy to lay off of Jasper. "He has a mate, after all," I remind her.
"No, baby, he doesn't," she says. "That black haired freak is not his mate. Emmett is the only male in that house with a mate."
"There are three couples, Crazy!" I respond. "It's Jasper and Alice, Emmett and Rosalie, and Carlisle and Esme."
"I don't think so. Those ladies may be their wives, but they are not their mates," retorts Crazy. "It was that way with humans as well. Plenty of married people were not in love. After all, you don't have to be in love to get married, but you do have to know somebody.*** Only Rosalie and Emmett are true mates. Haven't you noticed they can't stay away from one another? Even when they are physically separated, they are still attuned to each other."
I had noticed that. When Emmett was playing a video game on one side of a room, and Rosalie was with Alice or Esme on the other side of the room, she was still facing him. Their eyes met often.
"Then why are the other two couples married?" I ask.
"They were trying to pass as humans before the Event, right?" asks Crazy.
I nod.
"The marriages allowed them to look more human. And it gets lonely waiting for one's mate, so often vampires will hook up with someone for a while. Of course, you don't have to hook up for a long period of time…"
I rolled my eyes. I had long ago accepted that my friend was a succubus. She loved her vampire men.
"Well, after the Event, a lot of female vampires stayed with male vampire friends for safety reasons. And since this was a coven that had lived together for decades, it was probably natural to stay together as much as they could," Crazy continued. "Trust me; Jasper and Carlisle are single boys."
I knew this could be a dangerous world for single vampresses. I had seen some in the brothels, but I thought that was a rare occurrence. I wonder if there were other dangers out there too. But really, I was a lot more concerned about humans than vampresses.
After a few days, Crazy leaves to go back east for business. She has to at least pretend to be a census worker, so she can't stay in any one location for an extended period of time. The second day she is gone happens to be Jasper's birthday.
The morning of Jasper's birthday, the UPS guy shows up with a package addressed to, "the Little One, c/o Dr. Carlisle Cullen". And, of course, no return address. My cousins have sent Jasper's birthday cake. They went to a lot of trouble, digging around in his history for an idea for the perfect cake decoration. They had been debating what to put on his cake. Should they put a confederate flag on the cake, or a horse? In the end, they decided to put on yellow roses, for the yellow rose of Texas.
But Jasper didn't come over on his birthday. With Crazy gone, he must have decided he got a day off. So the next morning, I sweetly told Esme I was going outside. I grabbed my cousins' cake from the fridge and took off for Jasper's house in Emmett's Jeep. I had noticed Emmett always left the keys in the ignition, so I knew I could grab it and go.
When I got to Jasper's house in Forks, I put the cake and balloons on his doorstep, rang the bell and jumped back in the car. Peter opened the door, wearing jeans and nothing else.
"This-is-for-Jasper's-birthday-yesterday-and-now-I'm- going," I stammered, trying to look anywhere but at Peter's gorgeous chest. I gunned the motor and took off down the street. Jasper flashed through the front door and was after me in seconds. I was heading straight home, so he could chase me all he wanted to as far as I was concerned.
Forks is a very small city, so I got to the highway quickly and made the turnoff to Carlisle's house within minutes. I pulled up to the house just as he caught up to the car.
"What the hell did you think you were doing?" he said angrily.
Emmett came out of the woods and ran up to the Jeep. "Hey, you took my ride!" He quickly glanced at me, making sure I was ok, then reached inside his Jeep and removed the keys from the ignition.
Crazy chose that moment to pull up behind us in the driveway. I guess she concluded her business early.
She purred at the sight of Jasper, who rolled his eyes. He grabbed my arm and started to drag me inside the house. That set Crazy off, so she leapt out of the car and charged Jasper, jumping on his back in order to tear off his head. It was her signature move, climbing onto a guy's back to tear off his head. Fortunately for Jasper, Peter chose that moment to show up. He pulled Crazy off of Jasper while I stomped inside the house with Emmett right behind me.
"I'm going to my room. Carlisle said I could go to my room when I needed privacy, and you would all respect that," I yelled, trying unsuccessfully to slam the door in everyone's face.
"Yeah, that room with no windows. That's kind of kinky. She sleeps just off Carlisle's study. This house is jam packed with windows, and her room doesn't have any?" observes Crazy.
Crazy was trying a diversionary tactic, but Jasper saw right through it. He watched me go upstairs through half closed eyes.
"By the way, did you like the cake?" I asked Jasper, leaning over the upstairs bannister. "My cousins went to lot of trouble to make you a cake and get it here on your birthday."
"Charlotte's bringing it over," Jasper said. I turned around and went through Carlisle's study to my room. I glared at the portrait of Carlisle with the thee Volturi as I passed it, and mumbled "this is all your fault" to the depiction of Aro it contained.
I heard some hissing between Jasper and Emmett. Actually what I heard was Emmett saying, "How did this happen? Well, Esme and I both heard the Jeep's engine start, but we each thought the other was driving. A few minutes later, we saw one another, and realized 99 was gone. That's when I ran into town, and she called Carlisle. Next thing I knew, I saw the Jeep heading back towards the house. I couldn't intercept it, so I ran back through the woods. When I got here, you were already here, growling at Crazy."
A few minutes later I heard a door open downstairs, and then I heard Crazy yell, "What the hell happened to it? Did someone jump on the box?"
There was a quiet answer, and Crazy yelled again. "Well that's just great. Alice threw it in the trash. What a dog in the manger she is! Don't you two have a human over there? Maybe she would have liked some. Maybe 99 would have liked some. What is wrong with you people?" I heard quiet voices interspersed with angry snorts and snarls from Crazy.
I decided I would try to take a nap, as I had a headache. So I pulled back the purple comforter on the bed and closed the bed curtains. But within seconds, Crazy was outside my door. "You ok, baby? Can I come in?"
I answered, "Yes", as there was no reason to try to keep her out. If she was outside pestering me to come in, she would be a much bigger distraction.
She came into the room, closing the door behind her. She climbed on my bed and began to stroke my head, rocking and muttering under her breath. Suddenly she asked "Who do you know rides a bike?"
I said, "What?"
Crazy said, "Someone human is riding a bike up to the house!"
She got off my bed and flashed downstairs. I heard a woman's voice asking to speak to Mrs. Cullen. Esme's voice came next. "I love your roses," was all I could make out from the voices downstairs. I couldn't stand the suspense of not knowing who was at the door. I opened the door to my room and crept out into the hallway, so I could see down the stairwell.
A very pregnant human woman was standing in the hallway talking to Esme. She was a little taller than Esme, she was tan and had long black hair. She must have heard me, because she turned to look at me. "How was the birthday party?" she asked.
"Um, just great?" I said, venturing downstairs.
"I'd heard so much about that cake, I had to come over. My name's Emily; I'm Sam Ulley's wife," she said, extending her hand. I took her hand to shake it, relishing the feeling of warmth. I had been around vampires for months; I hadn't realized how much I missed casual contact with another human.
I shook her hand and stared at her for a moment. She had three prominent scars down one side of her face, but that wasn't what drew my attention. She looked happy, and…pudgy? I had grown up around pregnant women. Their faces were drawn, and their arms and legs bony, as if the baby was draining every ounce of life from them.
"Baby, that's what a pregnant woman is supposed to look like," said Crazy quietly, obviously guessing what I was thinking. "How far along are you, honey?" she asked Emily.
Emily patted her stomach. "About 8 months. And baby wants a piece of that cake."
The cake, right. The one Alice put in the trash. I saw the battered box on the table next to Charlotte. Jasper looked down at the box and grimaced.
"Is that it?" asked Emily, looking at the box as well.
I nodded. "I think so." I picked the box up and looked inside.
Inside the box, there was a mess of yellow and brown. "This is what happens to cake when a vampress gets her hands on it," I observed dryly.
Emily looked inside too. "What was it supposed to be?"
"It was covered with yellow roses, for the yellow rose of Texas," I began. "It was for Jasper's birthday. There was a ring of roses around the outside, and then one big one in the center." I was starting to get angry at the destruction of my cousins' work.
Jasper said, "Darlin, that was sweet of you. How did you know it was my birthday?"
"Human birthdays are a matter of public record, and those records are written in human language. We can, and do, read the records of our past, you know," I snapped.
I was pissed that he had given himself "a day off" from human-sitting me on his birthday. He hadn't wanted to be around me on 'his' day, he wanted to spend it with his friends. Well that made sense, wasn't he only here because Carlisle made him take a turn doing human guard duty? I didn't mean anything to him as a person; I was only a responsibility he was fulfilling for his coven leader. And now I had let myself get hurt. My c.o. had been very specific with his orders. He hadn't liked that I was living with this coven, and he had said to be especially careful around Jasper, who as an empath could control emotions. I hated that my c.o. had been right.
And I hated that my cousins' had made this birthday cake and sent it here, so they were dragged into this too. They must have been gossiping with the Quileutes again. The Quileutes were somehow related via distant cousins to the Home coven. The cousins told me that when I arrived in Forks, Luther had contacted Billy Black and told them I was staying with Carlisle. I'm not sure exactly what he told them, though. I knew Rodrigo and some of the boys basically considered me "coven property", as I was one of the cousins. I knew Luther and Sam had worked out an arrangement so that the Quileutes had been watching over me, so they talked. Sometimes the female members of the two tribes talked as well. If Emily was Sam's wife, then she must have heard about the birthday cake.
Emily took the box. "Well, I don't know how to make a rose, but I think even I could make a cowboy hat out of the yellow icing," she said.
We both looked in the box, and Crazy leaned over to look in too. Crazy giggled, and said, "Yep, I think you could just scoop all that yellow stuff together, and then make another little oval on top, that would be a hat. That could work."
Emily and I walked in the kitchen. Esme and Crazy started to follow, but I turned at the doorway. "This is a Vampire-Free Zone," I said. "Humans made this cake, and humans will repair it.
Emily looked around the kitchen for a moment before moving to the center island. "It's really beautiful," she said. I looked around the kitchen again, as if seeing it for the first time. It was a nice kitchen, very airy and well lit. The center island was made of marble, and the appliances had been built into the counters so the overall impression of the kitchen was a smooth, undulating line of counter space. The pans were hung from a pegboard inside the pantry, so the counters and walls were entirely clear. There was a TV next to the built in stove, which I knew Esme sometimes used to watched cooking videos.
Emily looked though the drawers, where she found spatulas and a knife, and we set to work fixing the cake's icing.
"Do you have any toothpicks?" Emily asked? "Maybe we could put the pieces that were broken off back on with toothpicks."
I opened a few cupboard doors and found toothpicks next to the built in spice rack.
Crazy came to the kitchen doorway, and just as she was declaring she could enter, Carlisle pulled in to the garage. He started to come in the back door, but I told him the kitchen was a Vampire Free Zone. He raised an eyebrow but walked around to the front door.
Crazy was expounding on the reasons she should be able to enter the kitchen, when Carlisle tried to walk past her. Crazy grabbed his arm and swung him into the dining room wall with such force he left a dent. He was surprised and started to charge her, but stopped when he saw Emily and me watching. He gave Emily a quick glance, pausing at the scars on her face, and her obviously swollen stomach.
"Carlisle," I began, "this is Emily. Emily, this is Dr. Carlisle Cullen."
They both exchanged, "Pleased to meet you responses," and then paused.
Since I had declared the kitchen a Vampire Free Zone, there was no place on earth the vampires in the house wanted to be more than in that room. Crazy began to explain that as she was my guardian, she should get to come in to the kitchen. Carlisle clearly wasn't going to be kept out of a room in his own house, and started to come in, but Crazy stopped him.
"Your court order may be more legal than the forged papers I have for her, but I'm her guardian," she said.
"Guardian?" asked Jasper.
"I was appointed her guardian by the humans. I had to petition, and show I was worthy of the position."
Jasper and Carlisle exchanged a look.
Crazy got pissed and said, "While you keep her in a room with no windows, I was busy repairing her life in the real world."
PLEASE READ AND REVIEW. ALL REVIEWERS WILL GET AN EXCERPT FROM THE NEXT CHAPTER.
How did Crazy get this guardianship? Can the cake be fixed? (Will Carlisle survive Crazy?)
***When I was in college, my resident master's wife made this remark.