Some people laugh

Some people cry

Some people live

Some people die

Some people run

Right into the fire

And some people hide

Their every desire

"The heart never lies"

-Mcfly

Chapter 55:

I hate heartfelt speeches

I was surprised at how quickly the days after Christmas passed. I got a call from Jacob the day before New Years Eve.

"It's time," was all he said. What he was really saying: round up the troops.

"I'm heading out to the clearing with Bella and Nessie. Edward and Carlisle are already there. We're camping out tonight," he explained. "We're not exactly sure when they'll be here, but according to Bella, Alice mentioned that there was a lot of snow on the ground when they came in her vision."

"Great. We'll die in a winter wonderland." I joked. I had to wonder how accurate Alice's vision was this time. How did we know that she wasn't seeing ten years from now when a blizzard struck the town? That would be just our luck, sitting and waiting ten freaking miserable years for an army of vampires to say, "Yep, I'm sure they're doing something wrong. Kill them."

"I've already spoken with Sam. His pack is gearing up to guard the town's border tonight. The younger kids are going to stay behind unless he feels absolutely necessary to do otherwise. I think he wants to see what the Volturi's motives are."

Well, that was easy. They wanted to kill the Cullens. And I'm sure when they had muttered "mission accomplished," they would float right back across the ocean to their stupid little country.

"What's the plan?" I asked.

"I'd like for you guys to be out here tonight," Jacob said.

"I'll pass it on."

There was a pause on the other end of the line.

"Jake, you still there?"

"Yeah."

"What's with the sudden silent treatment? What could I have possibly said in the past ten seconds to piss you off?" I questioned.

He laughed. "For once, it's not anything you did," he said. "I just feel bad for our parents. I especially feel crappy about the way I left things with my dad. When I saw him yesterday, we got into it." He took a moment to think about something. "How much does your mom know?"

"I think she knows more than she lets on." My mom was good at knowing things and playing dumb about them. Though I wouldn't go as far as saying that she knew what we were up against. If she did, she probably would be freaking out a lot more.

"Yeah, I think my dad does, too. He never said anything to me about it, but he was desperate to keep me home. He even went as far as trying to ground me." He let out a laugh.

"You're living with a bunch of vampires. What possible punishment could he come up with that's worse than that?"

Jacob howled out a laugh. "That's exactly what I said."

"Scary. Get out of my head."

"No. I'm staying there. And while I'm there, I'm going to be doing naked cartwheels."

"Bastard." Now I couldn't get the image out of my head.

The conversation took a serious turn again.

"You thought about what you're going to say to your mom?"

"I dunno. 'Goodnight' seems to work pretty well."

"You aren't going to talk to her about any of this?" he asked.

"I was thinking that it would probably be a bad idea to go, 'hey, mom, Seth and I are going to fight an army of vampires. Don't set the table for us tonight cuz our body parts will probably be scattered all over Washington.'"

"You're not even going to say goodbye?"

"I don't have it in me," I admitted. "I'm not going to watch the agony wash across her face."

"I said goodbye to my dad."

"Great. Thanks," I grumbled. Now Billy would tell my mother.

"Well, I didn't flat out tell him about the Volturi. But I told him that something was going on that he would one day understand. And when that day came, I hoped he could forgive me for everything I've put him through. Then I thanked him for being my dad and told him that I loved him."

"He probably thinks that you're on drugs." If Jacob had really told him all that, Billy probably had no clue what to think of his outpour of honesty and love.

"You're missing my point." Jacob sounded frustrated.

"Which is what?"

"You should at least say something to your mom. Don't leave her without saying something meaningful."

"I'm sorry, have we met? Since when do I say meaningful things?"

"Think about it. That's all I'm saying," he sighed. I heard something in the background. It sounded like Nessie. "I've gotta go. Just head out this way later on this evening."

"Can't wait," I mumbled sarcastically.

We said goodbye and I immediately called Quil and Embry to let them know what the plan was. Embry kept a stoic tone on the phone. I couldn't tell what he was feeling. Quil was a little bit more readable. I heard him whimper something about Claire, and then he started gushing about his feelings. I got tired of hearing him blubbering like a baby, so I asked him if he wanted me to tie a string around a napkin so he could stick it in his bleeding vagina. He hung up on me.

I explained to Seth that we were going to be leaving tonight. He just mumbled something incoherently as he disappeared into his room.

The day went by very quickly. When the sun set, reality set in. I knew in a few hours, Seth and I would be preparing to fight the battle of the century. I had to hide that worry when I heard my mom's car pull into the driveway. She was home from Charlie's. I sighed. I was really hoping that she would have stayed with him tonight. It would be a lot easier to sneak out knowing she wasn't under the same roof. But I guess the fates were determined to make this as hard as possible.

I started to think about what Jake was saying on the phone. He had a point. I really didn't want my mother's last memory of her kids to be of us hiding in our rooms grumbling about how much our lives sucked.

I understood the gravity of the situation. If this meeting with the Volturi did come to a fight, we wouldn't fare well. I knew that. Seth knew that. We all knew it. In case Alice was right and this did turn into a battle, I knew couldn't leave my mother without a proper goodbye. But how could I say goodbye to her without breaking her heart?

My mother came through the front door a few seconds later. I smiled at her.

"And where have you been, young lady?" The first thing I could think of was to tease her. Maybe I could put her in a good mood. I wanted to leave her in good spirits.

I saw her blush. It was so freaking cute that she still got all flustered when she was thinking of Charlie.

"Charlie took me out to dinner." she said with a grin. Well, that was a nice change of pace from my mother cooking for him all the time. "He said he would have cooked for me, but he didn't want to subject me to that kind of torture." She sat down on the sofa. She looked exhausted, yet exhilarated.

That's what we should to do run the Volturi away. Force them to eat Charlie's cooking. They'd piss themselves with fear when they saw how he prepared a meal.

I plopped down next to my mom silently and put my arms around her. I saw immediately that that was probably a mistake. She wasn't used to me being so affectionate.

"Oh, God, who died?" She looked at me suspiciously.

I laughed. Part of the laughter was nerves. I almost blurted out "Seth and I tomorrow morning," but I somehow managed to sound calm,

"No one. I just like to see you happy. It makes me happy." That was easy to say, because it was true.

She still didn't look convinced, but she hugged me back anyway. We sat in silence for a little while. I still wasn't sure what to say to her. I was starting to think that maybe I should just leave her a letter. But with my luck, she'd find it before the battle happened and would do something motherly like…run into the clearing screaming for Seth and I to get our asses home before she beat us senseless.

I went on with the "being normal" charade.

"I like that Charlie makes you happy. You deserve it after everything you've been through." I shrugged. "You've been very understanding about everything Seth and I are doing. You stood up for us when the rest of the tribe was ready to shun us for joining Jake's pack, you don't pressure us to do anything we don't want to do, and you've put up with my attitude for twenty years." I smiled at her.

"Twenty-one in a few weeks." My mom reminded me that my birthday was painfully close.

"Tell me you don't have a party planned," I grimaced.

She didn't say anything as she grinned at me.

I grumbled, but then I remembered that I might not be around, so what was the harm in letting her get her way? I chuckled. "I want a moon bounce and a clown." She laughed. "And a piñata."

"I'll see what I can do." She took a moment to look at me seriously.

"What?" Her gaze was making me uncomfortable.

"I just can't believe it. My baby girl is going to be twenty-one." She paused. "The legal drinking age…"

I had to choke back laughter. "Oh, yeah. I'll be able to try alcohol. I can't wait to see what it tastes like…"

She rolled her eyes at me, but then smiled again. "You know, you joke about how awful you were as a teenager, but actually you were pretty normal. You managed to stay out of trouble most of the time."

I giggled to myself. There was a lot my mother didn't know about some of the havoc I had wrecked in our town.

"I had good parents." I glanced at her. I wondered if I had ever told her how much she and dad really meant to me. "Did I ever thank you?"

"For what?"

"For never putting me up for adoption. I'm sure I wasn't the easiest person in the world to live with. But you and dad never gave up on me. Even when I was at my worst, you were always there for me." Jake was right. I needed to leave my mother with something heartfelt, just in case…

My mom continued to look at me like I had completely lost my mind. I no longer cared about trying to pretend that nothing was wrong and everything was normal. Mom already knew that something was up, so why should I treat her like crap the last few hours that I had with her?

"That's what parents do, Leah," she explained. She leaned in and kissed my forehead. "I'm just glad that you think I've done well."

She had done better than well, and she deserved to know it.

"You have been so supportive, and much more patient than I deserved sometimes. You comforted me when my heart was broken, you kicked me in the ass when I needed a shove forward, and you're constantly putting everyone else's needs before your own. My entire life, you have never let me down. Mom, you've been incredible," I admitted. She was the only one I could honestly say that to, because she was the only person in my life who had never doubted me for a second.

My mom's eyes filled up with tears. She was speechless. I never did these after-school-special type speeches. I wasn't a very emotional person. I think I'd caught her by surprise. She leaned forward and embraced me tightly.

"Thank you, Leah." She finally managed to choke out. As she pulled away from me, she looked into my eyes. I did the best I could to try and hide my pain. It was something I was normally good at, but this was different. If something happened, she was going to be the one in pain. I didn't like to think of my mother in pain. It made me sad.

I bit my tongue to choke back tears.

"It's been a long day." I yawned as I stood up. "I think I'm going to head to bed a little early." I smiled at her again. "I love you, mom."

"I love you, too, honey." And with that, I turned around to keep her from seeing my building discomfort. I had only taken one step when she grabbed my hand. The motion forced me to turn around and look at her.

"I don't know what's going on, or what you and your brother are up to, but…just promise me that you'll come home," she begged.

So, I wasn't as good at this "everything's normal" crap as I'd thought. She obviously didn't know about the Volturi, but I'm sure she suspected there was a battle looming. And me getting all mushy and sharing my feelings with her confirmed her fears that it was really bad.

"I'll do my best."

"That's not good enough." She glared at me. She didn't think I knew that? I wanted to tell her that everything was going to be okay, but what was I supposed to do? Lie?

I frowned. I was already breaking all the rules in life. I was a werewolf protecting a group of vampires. Lying to my mother was nothing compared to that.

"Okay, mom."

"Promise me."

"I promise." That was probably the single most horrible lie I had ever told in my entire life. I was a terrible person for promising something that I knew I couldn't keep. What the hell kind of daughter was I?

My mom let go of my hand and smiled in satisfaction. I was glad that she bought it. I don't know if I could have continued to lie.

I couldn't get my bedroom door shut fast enough. Instead of completely losing my cool and crying like a whiny little baby, I focused my energy on more important matters. I went over attack scenarios in my head. I tried to picture how many vampires were coming. I imagined how the fight might take place.

I went through my brain, picking out the Cullens scents so if the battle got hectic, I could avoid taking out someone who was fighting on the same side as me. I was going to do my best not to attack any of the Denali clan either. Kate would be very useful in a physical battle. Like Jane, she could shock others.

Benjamin would have to be protected, too. Maybe he could use his power to manipulate some kind of an earthquake, causing the ground beneath the Volturi to split in half so they could fall back into the depths of hell from which they came.

Zafrina didn't need protection, as all she had to do was create a giant imaginary monster for the Volturi to run away from. I could just picture her creating some huge evil bunny to chase the Volturi away. That would be hilarious to see. Run for your life! It's Bugs Bunny!

A few hours had gone by. I heard a soft knock at my door. Seth peeked in.

"Mom's asleep."

I hopped off of my bed and grabbed an extra set of clothes...just in case I needed to phase to talk to someone for some reason. As Seth and I made our way down the hallway, I noticed that he took a moment to pause at mom's door. He sighed.

"She knows that we love her, right?" he questioned. He had always been a loving kid. He and mom had a really strong bond.

"She knows," I assured him.

"I told her before she went to bed," he said. "We talked about dad tonight. She told me that I reminded her a lot of him."

"Yeah, a spitting image." I was getting impatient. I didn't want mom to wake up any time soon. I wanted her to get a full night's rest before she started to worry about us. I grabbed Seth's arm. "We need to get going."

He followed me to the front door. My house was very easy to sneak in and out of. I had done this a million times before. I glanced at Seth as I put my hand on the door knob. This felt so wrong. I always imaged that I would one day be teaching my brother to sneak out. I didn't figure that we would be sneaking out to meet our untimely demise.

Seth stopped me from opening the door.

"Hold on a sec." He walked to the window a few feet away from the door. He opened the window and leaned out. I heard him move a few things around. He came back inside, closed the window, and then nodded at me. "Okay. Go ahead."

I looked at him in confusion. "What the hell was that about?"

Seth shrugged. "I took the light bulb out of the motion sensor. Mom replaced it a few days ago." We had a motion sensor light on our front porch that was bright enough to illuminate the entire neighborhood, but the bulb had been burned out for years. Apparently, mom decided to replace it because of our odd behavior lately. I continued to stare at my brother in surprise. He just smiled innocently. "I've done this more than you think, Leah."

Seth never ceased to amaze me. I was beginning to wonder what else the kid was keeping from me.

He and I quietly made our way out of our neighborhood before we phased. Embry, Quil, and Jacob were already wolves.

Seth immediately jumped in to explain our tardiness.

We had to wait until mom was asleep before making a break for it.

"Making a break for it?" What were we, escaped prisoners?

Have we missed anything? I questioned.

Nessie did this really cute thing where…

Sorry I asked. I interrupted Jacob from telling me whatever his amazing Nessie had done this time.

Seth and I met the others in the forest. We didn't say much as we all found a place to comfortably rest. Jacob phased to be with Nessie. We spread ourselves out among the trees. I listened closely as Quil's thoughts faded into a conscious sleep. Seth drifted off, too. I was too amped up to sleep, so I just laid on the ground with my eyes darting across the forest floor. Embry came to join me at one point, but he fell asleep, too.

Most of Sam's pack was there. The only ones missing were eleven-year-old Justin and his buddy Danny. Sam explained to Jacob that the boys were guarding the border tonight, but they would join us in the morning. So much for keeping the little ones out of the battle. I had to admit though, Sam was right for involving the entire pack. We needed all the help we could get.

I stayed awake through the night. I felt like I had ingested a hundred cups of coffee…laced with crack. When the early morning haze gleamed through the trees, I stood up. I felt Jacob phase. It wasn't going to be long now. We paced around in the woods. Jacob only stopped once to watch Bella dress Nessie when she woke up. I watched through his eyes as Nessie and Bella exchanged "I love yous." Any other time, that would have made me sick to my stomach to watch. But considering I had just done the same thing with my mother, I couldn't give her hell for it.

Jacob raced off, leaving Bella and Nessie to share their moment. We aligned ourselves behind the vampires, hidden in the forest so the Volturi wouldn't see us right away. I had Embry on my left and Paul on my right.

I glanced into the clearing. Carlisle was at the head of the line with Emmett and Edward on either side of him. It was only fitting that the doctor be the first one the Volturi encountered. If they were going to be taken out, he would volunteer to go first. He was just selfless like that. Rosalie and the Denali clan were on the front line, too.

Bella took her place a few feet behind the front line, along with Benjamin and Zafrina. I wondered how much good her shield was going to do. Had she gotten any better at it in the past few days?

Jacob let out a whine when he saw Nessie cuddling closely against Bella's back.

I can't stand this, Jacob sighed. He didn't like being this far away from Nessie, especially with her so close to danger.

It was important that the Volturi not see the wolves just yet. We were the second defense if the vampires and their witnesses failed to make them stop. But it wasn't right for Jacob to feel such despair when the person he loved the most was within a few feet of him.

Just go, I said. Even if they did see Jacob, one werewolf was hardly going to be enough to cause the army to falter.

Jacob loped out of the woods and over to Bella's side. She didn't say anything to him, she just nodded. Nessie sighed and grabbed Jacob's fur in her hands.

Everyone froze when Edward let out a low hiss. I didn't have to be in his head to know what it meant:

Here they come.