It's been too long! I'll keep this short-read and enjoy!
"How do I smell?" Paul asked. I looked at him with a raised eyebrow.
"Excuse me?"
"Maybe I smelled last night. That's why she didn't kiss me."
"Paul, she just met you. We're not in Europe."
"I'm just saying. I usually get a peck at the very, very least.
"Well, Gwen has class. Give her some time. She's probably suspicious of why you like her so much."
"We had a good night! I showed her the tide pools. Chicks love tide pools!"
"I bet," I said absentmindedly. We were in Chemistry. Last night had been great. I got to see Devon. Like all the crazy things I had told him to protect my cover story, he accepted my changes and how I looked related to all my other friends and how I had mysteriously shown up in La Push without needing an explanation.
Gwen had been friendly to Paul but in the Gwen way that also held back. Emily told him to be patient because they always come around, and she's a bit confused.
I was slightly uncomfortable with him being madly in love with Gwen. I didn't have any romantic feelings for her, but I'm still her friend and am protective of her. If Paul is a step out of line with her, he'll be answering to me, as I had reminded him after he told me he imprinted and several times after.
Paul stopped thinking out loud about ways to make her like him. "Do you hear that?" He asked quietly. My ears listened past the babble of the students around us and past the cars on the road. A wolf howl that didn't reach the human ears was clear in mine.
"We gotta go," Paul said.
"Can we?" I asked.
"Yeah, this has happened before, and Sam only calls us when there's an emergency. We need to hurry."
Paul caught the eye of our teacher, Mr. Rudd, and he flicked his head to the window which faced the woods. The teacher nodded, and Paul took his book and left. I followed a beat behind.
We walked briskly down the hallway and practically threw our books into Paul's unlocked locker. We turned right. Jared and Kim were stepping out of a classroom.
"What's going on?" Kim asked, worried.
"I think Sam found the leech," Jared said, "He wouldn't call us for anything less."
There was another more urgent howl from the woods.
"We need to go," he said. Paul and I nodded and headed for the doors. Kim held Jared back for a moment and gave him a short but deep kiss with the words, "Be careful." He smiled and nodded reassuringly.
"Come on, we got work to do!" Paul yelled. I shushed him.
"Be a little louder, Paul," I muttered. I pushed him, and we ran toward the woods. My heart was pounding with nerves about potentially facing a vampire. I tried to turn it into a buzz like the one I used to get before a big game. The good thing was that when the instinct took over, the nerves disappeared.
We tied our clothes to our ankles and changed into wolves.
Sam? We called out.
The vampire's headed this way. I'm on Cullen territory, in a meadow. I knew the place. Edward had shown me it on a hike. He took Bella here a million years ago. I took point and quickly led Paul and Jared in the right direction.
And you said you can't lead, Paul said.
Head in the game, Jared reminded him.
Sam met us half a mile from the. It's the male. He's taking his time scaling the cliffs that are a quarter of a mile from the meadow. Let's wait for him to come into the meadow and then attack from all sides.
It was a good plan. We took positions around the meadow. Paul and I were farther from where the vampire would be then Sam and Jared were. We had protested, but Sam reasoned that he and Jared had more experience and would be the better fighters. He took the risk to protect the pack.
I wanted to be closer for other reasons too. I didn't want time to change my mind when he came into the clearing, and I sprinted forward to kill him.
I heard a thud from a few yards behind me, in the forest. I turned an ear to the sound.
"Crap," a girl's voice said.
Crap I echoed. How much awful luck could one girl have to put her here now? Sam, what do we do?
Growl. Maybe she'll get scared and leave.
The leech! Paul reminds us.
He'll assume it's an animal and no threat to him, Sam said. So we growled. The girl swore and her heartbeat sped up. I heard hasty footsteps turn into a run in the opposite direction.
I looked behind me to see if I could see the girl getting away, just to make sure.
A blur with black hair ran by, almost too fast for me to see.
I ran after him as first reaction. I pushed my paws into the dirt to propel myself forward. My eyes were just as sharp as my running was fast so I traversed between trees easily.
The bloodsucker stopped and so did the girl. Her heartbeat was still beating quickly though. I understood what was happening. He had moved himself in front of her so he was facing me. Laurent couldn't see me though. His red eyes were focused on the prey. It was a game.
I only saw the back of the girl. She had long black hair and the same red-brown skin as me.
"You shouldn't be in the woods all alone, girl," Laurent said. He took a step forward, but the girl's feet remained planted.
"Leave me alone," her voice was trying to be strong, but it broke on the last word.
Leah, Sam internally moaned. The other wolves were looking for where I had followed Laurent to.
"I'm afraid I can't do that my dear," he said he took another step forward.
Then something strange happened. As I was crouching to attack Laurent, spasms ran down Leah's arms, legs, and spine. Before I leaped into the air, a giant gray wolf had replaced where Leah was and was running towards Laurent, making it across the space in one leap. I tried to distill my shock and work with the new voice in my head who was angrily snapping her teeth at the vampire. He seemed to be frozen with shock for a moment, not reaching the conclusion that the prey had become predator.
I jumped in next to Leah and tore off the arm of Laurent. It was instinctual. Leah's rage had subsided for a minute and her human side was coming up. It was shocked, confused, disoriented. Yet the wolf kept telling her to kill the vampire.
I snapped Laurent's neck and his head came off too. It rolled away. The fighting came so naturally. The other wolves found us, and Leah backed away. She was exhausted from the fighting and from trying to figure what happened.
This has got to be a dream, she thought. Exhaustion took over and her knees broke. She laid on her belly.
Is she asleep? Paul said. How is she asleep?
She couldn't understand what was happening so she told herself it was a dream. She's taking the mental doorway she takes when she's trying to escape a nightmare, Jared said. We all took a moment to praise his intellect.
Be quiet, Sam said, don't wake her up now.
We finish the gruesome job of assembling the vampire pieces and go back to human again. Sam produces a lighter from the pocket of the pants tied to his leg. We set the fire where it won't spread through the forest, and the strange smoke rises in the air. In her sleep, Leah has calmed down enough in her slumber to phase back to human. We put our clothes back on.
Because I had been playing football forever which includes a lot of locker room time, nudity hadn't been an issue before. In the pack, it was unavoidable and not worth worrying about. Now there was a naked and substantially older girl lying face-down on her belly in the middle of the woods. We all had the decency to keep our eyes on each other.
"What are we going to do?" Paul asked out loud.
"I mean, it's going to weird having a girl in the head, but it's just another wolf right?" I asked. They seemed really weird about a girl joining. Get a cooties shot and get over it.
Sam shook his head, "There aren't female wolves, Jacob. Leah's the only one."
"Oh," I said. There was a pause, "Um, anyone have a shirt? If she wakes up from her dream and sees a bunch of naked guys around her with her naked…it's going to raise questions."
Sam produced a shirt from around his ankle and tried to avert his eyes from her body as he slipped it over her head. It was big enough to be a dress.
"Let's take her home," Jared said, "She'll wake up, and we can all explain this to her calmly."
"Good idea. Just keep quiet," Sam said. He scooped her up, and we started to jog, but I told them to wait.
"Guys, we can't run fast without waking her up, and at this pace, we won't be home until one in the morning."
"Well, what do you suggest."
I take a deep nose breath. "My house isn't far away. There's a bed, and my grandma always leaves clothes behind in case we're ever in town. We can find something for her and someone can drive us back to La Push"
Paul and Jared shook their heads, but Sam hesitated. Emily was his imprint, but he still loved Leah in a different way. And when you love someone, you do what's best for them.
"Let's take her there. He's right. It's the only place anywhere near here."
I smile triumphantly and lead the shortest way back to my house. They all wrinkle their nose at the smell, but it's nearly gone anyway. I show Sam up to my grandparents' suite and find a pair of sweats that must have belonged to Grandma, not that I ever saw her dressed that casually. I hand them to Sam and let him take care of that.
I went downstairs where the other guys are doing a tour of the house.
"This is so weird," Paul said.
"In the leech house when they're not home," Jared said.
"Where are the coffins?" Paul asked me. I rolled my eyes.
"As you can see, we are completely coffin free," I said, "But the moat's in the back."
Paul tried sneak a look towards the back window, and I laughed.
The floor creaked upstairs, and Jared jumped a little. I was snickering.
"Just a house," I said.
"Well, let's not stick around. I'm calling Emily for a ride," Sam said, coming down the stairs, "I put Leah in a bed."
"I can't believe she's still asleep," Paul said.
Sam nodded. "She sleeps like a bear." He pulled his fingers through his short hair. "Poor Leah."
"Poor you," Jared pointed out.
Paul snorted although nothing about this is funny. "We are in for so many awkward moments."
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