CHAPTER 03:
SOMEBODY'S WATCHING ME,PT 1
( A DAY BEFORE THE WEDDING, BEGINNING OF THE VAMP THING)
Courtney rubbed her sleep heavy eyes and eyed the clock in her booth at the campus radio station warily. "Only 9 pm. 3 more hours left. Must find caffeine." she muttered as she tapped her foot against the floor, launched a paper plane at the waste basket. The paper plane was another attempted sketch of the wolf she'd been seeing in the woods near her biological father's house lately, sneaking out at night to feed occasionally.. and once, she'd even let it in, let it sleep next to her, when she got a weird feeling, like she was being watched, and it creeped her out. The wolf had lain there pretty much all night, it'd comforted her.
The On Air sign kicked on and she groaned inwardly before saying, "And now, ladies and gents of the nocturnal persuasion.. For your listening pleasure, it's an old song, but hey, I love it.. Keep Away, by Godsmack." as she slid the disc into the tray and let the music play. While she had the chance to do so, she dug through her change and began the walk down the hallway, to the aging vending machines, in hopes of finding some form of liquid energy, preferably something really strong, maybe a NOS energy drink.
The silky smooth voice spoke up from behind her. "Unusual one you are." it said as the male leaned against a nearby wall, just out of sight, in the darkness, his arms crossed, before continuing, "And you've such a sweet smell."
"Huh?" Courtney asked, biting her lower lip, feeling around in her pockets, wondering if maybe her father had shoved yet another can of mase down in the pocket of her leather jacket.
"You're not like your older sister. We haven't met.. But we will soon."
The voice and the 'shadow' disappeared and Courtney laughed as she said "Fuckin weirdo." before sliding the change in her hand into the coin slot on the machine, and then popping the top on her drink, flicking the silver tab at the garbage bin nearby. She'd almost choked on one clumsily as a kid, since then she'd taken to removing the damn things when she drank a soda from a can.
Two booths down, Jett, the 'jazz dj' peeked out and said "You gonna come out with us tonight to that new club again?"
" I dunno, J.. My sister's wedding is tomorrow and I'm kind of one of the bridesmaids? I'm not too sure I wanna watch big sis do the death march with a full on hangover." Courtney admitted as she rubbed her forehead, popped a tylenol out of the tylenol bottle, chasing it with a soda. "Besides, I've got a bitching migraine tonight."
"Okay, fine. But this weekend, then?"
"Sure.. Don't see why the hell not." Courtney said as Jett nodded then asked, "Did you see the guy with the freak eyes earlier? He was lurking around your booth, watching you. He looked kinda like your sister's fiance, so I left him be."
"Huh?"
None of her sister's extended family ever came to the campus, Bella herself had only been here once.. But the past few days, Bella had been acting really, really weird. A little above and beyond her normal 'weird/acceptable' scale, if you were to ask Courtney.. They kept whispering about something.. Courtney got the feeling it was 'vampire' related, but she stayed out of it, she and Charlie both promised they would and to be honest, Courtney just wasn't too damn sure how much she WANTED to know about her big sister's new life.
"The guy.. He was probably about 6 foot tall, had on a black leather trench coat.. And I swear to you, he had full on red eyes."
"Probably some creeper who listens to the show."
"No, this guy.. He looked.. Off somehow.. Like the elevator didn't go all the way to the top floor?"
Courtney gave Jett a thumbs up signalling she'd understood and then walking back into her booth, she texted Bella quickly and said "Some guy with pale skin / red eyes just came to the station?"
Bella was sitting in her room at the Cullen's house, when her cell phone vibrated. She read the text and she bit her fingernail before yelling down the stairs, "Guys? We have problems."
"Which one of them was it?"
"I don't know, but one of those jerks found my baby sister at the radio station, freaked her out, even if she's not admitting it." Bella said quietly as Alice sighed and then said " It wasn't Volturi."
"Whoa, huh?"
"No, this one.. Someone entirely different.. I've seen this." Alice said as she took Bella's phone and then dialed Courtney's number hurriedly, disappearing outside.
Courtney picked at her black nail polish as Disturbed blasted from within the sanctuary of the dj booth, and she drummed her foot against the top of her desk. She picked up the phone as it began to ring and then asked, "Alice?"
"Don't go home tonight. Charlie's gonna have a case, Sue's not gonna be there.. And if you go home, something not good will happen."
"Just where the holy shit am I supposed to go?" Courtney asked as she added, "What'd you see, Alice?"
"Nevermind that. Just trust me when I say the absolute last place you need to be tonight, is at home alone. Come here if you have to. Just don't go back there until Charlie's back at home for the night."
She could hear her older sister pleading with her not to be a stubborn ass tonight and just do it, and the weird feeling from earlier tonight only got worse. She bit her lower lip and then said quietly, "Fine.. I suppose I can go stay with Leah until Charlie's home or something.. If I have to, I'll tell him I idiotically lost my house key or something, pretty sure given my drunken shenanigans from time to time, he'll buy it."
Alice turned to Bella and said "She's gonna try to go to Leah Clearwaters."
"She does know she can come here, right?"
Edward sighed and then said quietly, "She does.. But you know yourself, babe.. Your relationship with your sister, especially since she found out the truth, it's been strained. And I think the vampire thing freaks her out a little bit, still."
"But she'll crawl into bed at night, literally, with a werewolf. She's my baby sister, I'm not gonna stand by and let something happen to her." Bella said quietly as Alice sighed and then said "Hey.. At least it's Embry."
"True, but.."
"She's safe either way.. Maybe even safer there.. I could be wrong, Bella, it could be Volturi. They have red eyes too."
Courtney finished out her shift and right before the end of it, she remembered what she'd promised Alice, and called Leah.
Leah raised a brow but waved her phone in Embry's direction, taunting him. Embry growled at her and lunged, but Leah answered her call from Courtney. "What's up, Coco?"
"I left my house key and I was wondering if I could come to your place just until Charlie's back? I didn't like, wake you up, did I?"
"Me, nah.. But yeah.. Come over. Seth's got a new video game.. We can prove that girls can dominate at zombie slaying."
"I'm not.. Not much of a gamer, actually.. I tried the whole WII thing once and yeah.. The damn control hit me in the eye."
Leah hung up and then looked at her fellow pack member, Embry as she said calmly, "You can stay.. But no lurking and being creepy.. And for the love of Christ.. Actually talk to her."
"Sis, Sam's gonna.."
"Not if he doesn't find out, Seth." Leah said firmly as she whirled to face her younger brother.
"Okay, alright, fine."
Embry punched the air in victory and then felt his own cell phone going off. He read the text from Alice and growled to himself, standing, his hands raking through his hair as he swore to himself.
"Something wrong?"
"When she called just now?"
"Yeah.. what about it.."
"Did she sound like she was freaked out, Leah? Just tell me.. Please?"
"A little, maybe. But she works crazy hours, Embry.. She operates on lack of sleep."
"According to Alice, some red eye leech that they're not sure whether he belonged to Volturi or not, showed up at the radio station on campus tonight." Embry said as he paced. Since it'd come out that he'd imprinted on Courtney, Sam had pretty much told him that she was off limits for now. And right now, this really ticked off the normally calm and quiet natured guy.
Sue called up the stairs, "Leah, Coco's here." as Leah looked at Embry, giving him a warning look as she said quickly, "You have to act normal, damn it, Embry. She cannot know about you until you're ready. I shouldn't even be letting you stay here with her here.. But if it were me, I'd want you to do the same."
The smell of McDonalds wafted through the door before Courtney stepped in, large bag of food in her hands, greedily almost inhaling a double cheeseburger with the works. "God, I was starved.. Leah? Seth? You guys are gonna help me eat all this crap, right?"
Leah laughed and then said "Yeah. We will.. Have you met Embry?"
Courtney's gaze caught in the warm brown eyes of the guy from the dress shop almost a week ago and she said with a smirk, "The guy.." as she raked her hands through her hair and said "French fry?"
He smiled, took the french fries from her hand as he laughed and said "You have mustard.. On your forehead."
"Ahh.. Not only am I clumsy, sir.. I'm a messy eater."
Seth tossed napkins at her and then said "So.. Leah's officially talked you two into squaring off against me and Embry in Call Of Duty."
"And I've told Leah.. I've broken controllers before." Courtney joked as she shifted her gaze to Embry who sat nearby, sort of watching her in curiousity. "Fuck me sideways.. I have food on my face again, don't I?"
"Nope." he said quietly as he unwrapped a cheeseburger from the bag and took a huge bite, making her giggle.
'Damn.. Bambi, that giggle will be my downfall.'
'Seriously? She's almost our stepsister for god's sakes, Call. Can't you umm, maybe control your thoughts with us here?'
'Didn't ask either of you to poke around in my mind, now did I? Is that a tattoo...'
'Yes, dork.. did you not realize that your little imprint has not one but 2 tattoos? And no, Charlie has no idea. She also had her eyebrow pierced at one time, but Renee made her take it out.'
Courtney moved a smidge closer to Embry's spot on the floor, leaning forward to pull a dvd off of the shelf beneath the television/dvd player and she heard him gasp when she did. She managed a bit of a smirk to herself, muttered quietly, "And you have no idea what you do to me, either." to herself.
Leah, who was sitting closest by her, smiled and then thought telepathically, 'No worries, Embry. She's into you. Definitely.'
'How the hell do YOU know?'
'You didn't hear her say what I just did. You can stop checking her ass out now, it's totally obvious.'
"So.. Anyone up for watching Supernatural or something?"
The three others in the room shared a look and Leah cleared her throat, asked with a slight smile, "Your sisters about to marry a vampire.. And you wanna keep watching that show?"
" The car and the music, Leah. The car and the music. Plus, I love the horror genre." Courtney muttered as she wiggled her feet free from her biker boots, glaring playfully when Seth snickered at her mismatched Batman/Superman socks.
"Seriously? You know they like.. Hate one another.. Right?" Leah joked as Courtney shrugged and tossing a fry at her friend said "Don't give me shit, Clearwater. I got dressed in the dark again."
"You do that a lot, don't you?" Embry blurted as she turned to look at him, brow raised. 'Err.. crap.'
'oh embry, you got some 'splainin to dooooo.'
' nah.. i got this.' he thought as he added, "I mean that's what Bella said at the dress shop when she saw that other pair of socks. She's kinda loud, can't help but.."
"Overhear, yeah." Courtney, finished, hint of a teasing smirk playing across her lips as her cell phone began to ring - Carry On My Wayward Son- and also said -hey assbutt- indicating a call AND a text.
"Yeah, Charlie?"
"I made it in. I got your text while I was on a scene, I couldn't answer.. Everything okay?"
"Yeah, I just figured that Bella's probably in meltdown mode, what with tomorrow being DDay and all, so I came to Ms. Sue's house with Seth and Leah."
- hey assbutt- played again and Courtney raised a brow then asked, "Seriously, Leah, you're gonna text me from across the room?"
Leah shrugged and said "I just wanted to see if your phone said what I thought it did."
"Well, it did, girl."
"You gotta go already?" Seth asked, mouth full of french fries, he'd been finishing off the spilled ones in the bag while they were all 'communicating'. Embry frowned as he looked at her. She just got here. He didn't really want her to leave yet.
"Yeah, sadly, I gotta go.. Sis will crawl my ass for me if I oversleep on her big day." Courtney muttered as Embry jumped up from the floor and said "I'll, umm, walk down with you.. I gotta go too.. I'm supposed to be in my room right now."
"Ooh.. Livin dangerously, huh? I like that, big guy." Courtney said as they walked out of the room, Courtney slipping on her jacket and going into the den to tell Seth and Leah's mother goodbye for the night, thanking her for letting her come over an hour or two.
"It's not a problem, really.. I don't blame you, being alone in a new place wouldn't feel right for me, either." Sue said as she gave Embry a knowing grin as they walked out the door.
"So... bella said you and Jake switched? You're gonna walk with me down the aisle?"
Embry shrugged and then said "Jake's upset right now, some major things went down with him and your sister.. It's just better if I do it.. He's probably not gonna be there."
"Damn it."
"What?"
"Now who's gonna slip into the bar area and get me a glass of red wine?"
"You don't actually drink that.. Do you?" Embry asked her in concern as he leaned in, brushed some hair back from her face.
"Umm, yeah, duh." Courtney giggled as she looked up at him and said casually, "How the hell else do you think I'm gonna muster up the courage to be the 'bad kid' and make the totally inappropriate toast to my big sister? Or dance all daringly with this really tall, really cute guy..."
His jealousy flared a moment, but he realized that she was looking up at him, biting her lower lip as her finger trailed down his bare arm, sending shivers down his spine.
"Huh?"
"You heard me, big guy.. You are saving me a dance.. Right?" Courtney asked, a slight wink as she moved a little closer.. She wasn't really acting like herself tonight, but she was freaked out, she was wondering what was going on with her sister that her sister wasn't telling her or Charlie about and ... There was just something about this guy in front of her, if one wanted complete honesty.
She knew from her few casual questions to Bella about him since meeting him in the dress shop when they'd all been getting fitted that he was pretty notoriously shy, so she knew that if she wanted him to KNOW she maybe felt something she couldn't explain for the guy, she'd have to be her normally bold self.
"Yeah." he said as he smiled a little and then said casually.. "Be careful.. I mean it's late."
"I'll be fine." Courtney said as she slid through the window of her car and down into the drivers seat, leaning out the window after writing something on a napkin and handing it to him. "See ya around, Embry."
As she drove off, he looked at the napkin in his hand and realized she'd just given him her cell phone number AND the number at Charlie's house.. Which meant a lot, according to Bella, because Courtney was sort of an island unto herself, as much as he'd managed to find out about her..