Chapter 17

Josy P.O.V.

Jake had dropped us off at home after he helped Mike get some pants on, he explained to me that he always had an extra pair or two. Just in case, he said. Just in case of what? A spill? I had never known a guy that had carried around extra pairs of pants and a few extra shirts. Not even Dallas, my ex-boyfriend in Oklahoma, had carried around extra clothes. Which, with how high maintenance he was, wouldn't have surprised me if he had.

Dad was home around the time that Jake's truck stopped in front of our house and was pacing in the living room when I helped my cousin carry my brother inside. My dad stopped to look at us, turning red and looking like he was about to explode. I turned my face away, readying myself for whatever my dad would throw at us. He had sucked in his lips - a sure sign that he was trying to stay calm - and his face was slowly draining of its color. He closed his eyes and lowered his head.

"Why were you both gone all day?" He whispered without opening his eyes or raising his head to look at the three of us. He waited for us to answer while Jake and I tried to figure out what to tell him, since Mike was currently out of commission and being held up by the two of us.

"Uncle Jack, I swear I can explain," Jake started, but my dad put his hand up as if to silence my cousin, his head still lowered.

"No, Jake, I was asking Josephine and Michael," He spoke quietly as if trying not to wake someone in a light sleep. "Where were you and your brother, Josy? I want to know the truth, not some sensational lie." He finally looked up at me, his mouth was firmly set in a line and his eyes were so dark they were almost black. I saw something in them, like disappointment or something similar to it.

"I don't know if I should tell you, Dad," I tried to avoid looking directly into his eyes as I spoke, but it was almost impossible. They were like magnets, trying to seek out the truth, trying to pull it out of me. I resisted. I stood my ground and looked into his eyes, trying to see who would look away first. I did of course, I never stood a chance against his stare.

"You'll tell me if you ever want to go out again," He used his most famous tactic. Trying to get me to break by taking away my social life. Not like I had really ever had much of one. He used to do it to Michael all the time when we lived in Oklahoma, but he would forget what he had said about a week later.

"Uncle Jack, just let me explain it to you," Jake handed Michael over to me completely and I almost dropped him. He was almost all dead weight and I struggled to get a good grip on him to carry him down the hall to his room. I finally got him to put his arms over my shoulders and tried not to hit him on the corner of the wall as my cousin distracted my dad. Knowing I only had a few minutes of distraction left, I tried to move quickly. My newfound strength was starting to help with carrying Mike, so I could move quicker than I would have been able to only a few days before.

I shuffled down the hallway quickly and nudged Mike's door open with the toe of my muddy boot. I noticed that I left a tiny bit of an imprint on the door and some footprints along our hall. I'd clean it up later. As I walked into the room, I had to push clothes and books out of the way to make a path to his bed. Once I was at his bedside, I kind of let him slip off of my back and onto his mattress. He landed safely and I could go back out to the living room to receive whatever punishment my dad decided to dole out.

I walked back out to the living room and heard my dad and Jake whispering sharply back and forth to each other. I stopped in the hallway and got against the wall where they couldn't see me and strained my ears to try and overhear them. It didn't work. So I walked out into the open of the living room where they could see me. My dad stopped talking and looked at me cautiously.

"Did you hear any of that?" I shook my head and he bobbed his head once at me. Jake looked awkwardly around the room and then back at my dad.

"I gotta go," my cousin pointed at the door and turned while making a face at me that my dad couldn't see. I tried not to smile and waved at him silently as he made his way out of our door.

Jake closed the door behind him and as soon as he did my dad turned to me and raised his eyebrows. "So," He began. "Jacob told me some interesting things and I'm going to go to bed now. Goodnight." I frowned and felt my eyebrows pull together to complete a look of confusion.

"Uh, night, Dad. I guess," he waved and walked down the hall to his room and I sat down on our couch near the bay window of our living room. I curled up in the corner and set my chin down on my arm and stared out at the street. I really wanted to know what Jake has said to my dad to make him just go to bed. No consequences given at all. It didn't feel right. It felt weird and I felt bad.

I sighed. This day kept getting weirder and weirder.

~*Break*~

I opened my eyes. Okay, I tried to open my eyes but my right one was stuck and my left eye was blurry. I blinked and rubbed my eye, then I opened both of my eyes. I was still on the couch, but a blanket was covering me. I breathed in sharply and looked around. I tried to figure out if it was Wednesday or Thursday. I looked at the calendar my dad had hung up near the doorway into the kitchen. It was Thursday. I groaned, I had inadvertently missed two days of school. This was totally going to bite me in the ass later.

I threw off the blanket and got up to stretch, then walked to our kitchen. I pushed the swinging door open and stopped abruptly. Quil stood in my kitchen with a slice of cheese in his mouth, bread in his hand, and mustard and mayonnaise on the counter. He looked at me and froze. Then slowly put everything down on the counter.

"Hey," He said tentatively. "How's it going?" I just stared at him. "Well, uh, you seem shocked that I'm in your kitchen."

"Uh, Quil, why are you here?" I looked around. "And where's the other guy, because I know there's one here." His eyes widened and he looked to his left. I looked to my right, where our dining room table and pantry were. I didn't see anyone. I walked to our back door and opened it, then opened the screen door and stepped out into our backyard. Embry was there, sitting on a patio chair at the table eating a sandwich. I looked at him and blinked, then walked back inside and closed the door. "Okay, let me rephrase that. Why are you both here in my house eating my food? Not that I really mind that much, but really?"

He looked awkwardly around while thinking of a way to get out of answering my question. I started to tap my foot to just make him feel more awkward. He didn't break. I sat down at the kitchen table and leaned back in the chair. Quil rushed over and put the front legs of my chair back on the linoleum floor and promptly went back to making his sandwich.

"So are you going to answer the question? Or are you going to going to just make your sandwich and give me the silent treatment for the whole day?" He just shrugged and stuck the sandwich in his mouth, grabbed a coke, and opened my back door to go out. My shoulders slumped and my head went back, I wasn't getting any answers from Mr. Sphinx himself.

He glanced back at me with an apologetic look, then quickly ducked out of the doorway and onto the concrete patio. I stayed at the table for a few minutes, then realized I was actually hungry. Cooking was not in order, but poptarts were. I grabbed a package of strawberry - not Mike's favorite, thank goodness, or I'd be subjected to a lecture twenty miles long about not eating someone else's food - and popped it in the toaster after taking off the package. I leaned against the counter and crossed my arms, I liked poptarts and toast burnt, so it would take a few minutes. As I waited, I looked around the kitchen, realizing for the tenth time in the month I had been there, that it didn't quite look like home yet.

Mom would have fixed it up right away. Some paintings, beige walls, blue and beige furniture. With a few tribal pieces here and there. She probably would have had her grandmother's dancing shawl on display somewhere in the house. I jumped as the toaster popped and grabbed a paper towel to set them on. This morning was turning bleak very quickly.

There wasn't a note from my dad anywhere in the kitchen or the coffee table in the living room. I hadn't seen one when I had woken up, anyway. I ate my poptarts quickly and went to see if Mike was still in his room, which he probably was based on how tired and out of it he was the night before. I pushed open the door to his bedroom quietly and saw that he was under the covers of the bed, his light brown hair poking out from the top of the blankets. His hair was like my dad's, fluffy, thin, and a much lighter color than mine. I closed his door just as silently as I had opened it and walked back out to the living room to straighten up the blanket I had thrown off of me.

I picked it up and started to fold, then noticed my cousin's truck outside of my house. With Jacob inside of it. I set the blanket down on the back of the couch as I walked out the front door and towards the truck, but before I could go farther than the step from my porch down to the path, two arms grabbed me and set me back on my porch.

"Hey! What do you think your doing?!" I struggled and tried to make them let me go, whoever they were. They set me down and steadied me - or tried to - as I twisted around to see who was man-handling me. It was Seth. Of course. The dude who almost every one of my waking thoughts was about. When I wasn't trying to figure out why people were in my house and why a vampire had tidied up my room, anyway.

"I am trying to keep you out of trouble. On Jake's orders. And your dad's," He paused. "Because your dad threatened me, Jake is my alpha, and I really really like you." he stopped talking for a short minute. "And I don't want you to get eaten by a vampire." I snorted in indignation.

"Yes, because I would get myself eaten by a - look what I'm saying!" I shouted, then brought down my volume. "This stupid stuff has already become a part of my vocabulary!" I whispered sharply. Okay, it was more of a whisper-yell. Not like anyone was really paying attention. Seth sighed and looked around.

"I think you should go inside before we both get in trouble," He told me as Jake started to look up from whatever he was doing in his truck. I looked over my shoulder and decided that he was right. I walked inside and closed the door behind me before realizing that Seth was going to follow. Whoops.

I feel like that was pretty long. Or long enough. IDK it's kind of late where I am. I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! Review and tell me what you think, please, because I'm always looking to improve.