Chapter 4: A Plan
I really had not wanted to turn back around and deal with Sam, but it had to be done and fast - preferably before my mother came home. "See I am all safe, he did not turn out to be a serial killer. Your can go away now."
"Leah I don't know what happened to you, you used to be such..." he came down from the porch so that he could glare down at me.
"Yeah, yeah but now I am bitch. Get over it." I was not going to let him finish that sentence. What had being a 'nice girl' earned me? Oh yeah, I was made a fool of and my boyfriend left me for my best friend. Yeah, it really pays to be good.
Sam realized that he was not going to get anywhere with that old argument so he moved onto the next topic, "and what the hell took you so long. I have been waiting here for over an hour. What were you doing with him?"
"Nothing much, we just stopped for a while." He was acting like I was obligated to explain myself to him.
"You do realize you are a young girl. Do you have any idea what he could have done to you? I am responsible.." seriously was he always such a stick in the mud or was this a more recent development.
"Oh hell no, you are not responsible for me. So you can stop this right now. You are not my father, so let me repeat it for you. Just in case you did not hear me the first thousand times: WHAT I DO IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!" I roared that last part, but there was no other way to make him understand.
"You could have been raped.." he continued like I had not even spoken.
Finally I had enough. "You know what they say. You can't rape the willing." I gave him a happy smirk trying to imply that something actually had happened between Phil and I.
Sam's face got really red and he started spluttering. This would have been awesome if it was not for the fear that my mother could return at any moment. "So if he pulled us into a secluded spot by the side of the road, bent me over his bike...which by the way is the perfect height to be bent over... and fucked me till I screamed his name. It...is... still...none...of...your business! Now stop harassing me about it, you are ruining my post orgasmic high."
If you have ever seen one of those cartoon characters where their eyes bug out of their face in surprise, well Sam was doing a fairly good impression of that. "Leah I can't believe you would... is that why he called you Princess. Or was it because he could not even be bothered to learn your name?"
"I never realized you had to know a girl's name to have sex with them," I pointed out throwing more fuel on the fire.
It took some cursing and then finally just plain pushing before I finally got rid of Sam. Seth had come home from school and got to hear the tail end of our argument, though based on the volume of our shouting the entire reservation probably heard what we said.
Seth knew better than to interrupt and had quickly disappeared inside the house. I could hear him muttering to himself about evil teachers not understanding the important things in life. Because of all the school he had missed in the past few weeks Seth had to attend Saturday detention on top of having to catch up with all the schoolwork. He was not at all happy about this situation. There was a good reason for skipping school, too bad it was not one he could share with his teachers. I knew he thought it was worth it, though it did not mean he enjoyed the extra work he had to put in.
Leaving my brother to his homework, I went for a run through the forest. It was more fun in wolf form, the speed of the bike could not compare to the wolf. With Jake still at the leeches' home admiring his little mate and Seth trying to tackle his mountain of homework I knew my solitude would not be interrupted for a few more hours.
For a few seconds I considered trying to track down Phil to see where he was going, that might give me a little more information about the man but too much time had passed for me to find him without putting in a great deal of effort. So I ran through the forest with no particular destination in mind, enjoying the smell of rain on the leaves - everything smelled clean and fresh. I just wish the darkness surrounding me could be washed away as easily. By the time I got back to the house my mother's car was in the driveway. She did not ask me how I had made it home, I was hoping she thought it was Sam. I was not technically lying to her, it was not my fault if she made the wrong assumption. I helped her set the table for dinner, a small fraction of guilt may have induced me to be a little more helpful than usual.
It was a quiet family dinner, no one was talking much beyond the "pass me the salt" conversation. My brother was trying to inhale his food, this was not out of the ordinary; it took a great deal of sustenance to maintain a wolf. All of a sudden I started considering my mother, how much was the grocery bill, she had two wolves to feed. My mother seemed a little distracted, maybe she was thinking of all the new things Charlie had learned and how best to keep him in the dark about the rest; maybe she was thinking about how to pay for the groceries.
"So who is this new guy that raised Sam's hackles?" my little brother asked as he paused in his shoveling of food. I looked up at him with a horrified stare, the question had been directed at me but he was not making eye contact. The little bastard had to know that he was about to get me in serious trouble. Seth had been pretty much the only person who had managed to stay off my shit list - with one stupid comment he just lost that honor.
"New guy?" My mother looked up, her fork still full of peas stopped midway to her mouth. Suddenly I had her full attention, I tried to clear my face of the guilt that I am sure was glaringly obvious.
"So mom, I was thinking maybe it was time for me to get a know contribute some, help pay a little into the bills." I tried to change the subject onto something else, anything was preferable to discussing my argument with Sam. My mother tended to take Sam's side on most arguments, she had not approved of my recent change in attitude.
I watched as my mother's eyes narrowed in contemplation. I had set off the mom alarms, I sounded a little too enthusiastic about looking for a job. There was one good thing about it, I guess this answered my question. Sam had not ratted me out. I gave my brother a look that promised retribution, and soon. He continued eating, a goofy grin on his face. Unfortunately for me not much phased Seth, which was great under usual circumstanced but not so good when I was trying to threaten him with dismemberment and maiming.
"Sam seemed upset about Leah hanging out with some new guy this afternoon." Seth added with a helpful tone. So I guess he had been listening to what Sam and I were talking about. I quickly ran down the list of tortures I could subject Seth to until I realized my mother was waiting for more information. My little brother's punishment would have to wait until after I dealt with my mother.
"It was no one important mom," I mumbled trying to downplay it as much as possible, I was not angry at this stranger for the problems this would cause with my mother. No, I knew who rightfully deserved my anger, and that would have been Sam. He should have minded his own business, and stayed away from me. That was the least he could do for me, he owed me that much.
"Well who is he?" My mother asked politely, too politely.
"Just some tourist." If I acted casually hopefully my mother would not find out the entire story.
"If he was just a tourist, why was Sam upset about him?" My mother was too intelligent for her own good.
"You know how Sam gets, paranoid to the max." I had just figured out my strategy. Tell her a truth but not necessarily the full truth. Sam was majorly paranoid, my mother knew this well, just a few weeks ago he tried to kill a human girl just because she might have possibly presented a potential problem.
Fortunately for me my mother dropped it after giving me a long look. I held her gaze, knowing it would prove my guilt if I looked aways. Unfortunately she took my bait. "So what is this about getting a job?"
"Well I was just thinking about it mom. You know since I can't go to school this semester." In the past I had spent most of my summer vacation working at my parents store.
"And whose fault is that?" For some reason my mother blamed me for leaving Sam's pack a few weeks back. She did not blame Seth, even though he had missed several weeks of school. Life was so unfair sometimes.
I picked up my fork and continued my dinner, I had learned earlier there was nothing I could say on the subject that would justify my actions. I was not about to pick up the stick to beat this dead horse again. My mother made a noise under her breath and she too continued her dinner.
"So I was thinking I could go to Forks Library tomorrow and see if there are any openings online." The more I thought about it the more I liked the idea of getting a job, it would most certainly get me closer to independence and leaving the Reservation. Where before there was nothing more I wanted to do rather than come back and settle down around here, now there was nothing I wanted to do more than never see this place again.
"There is always work to do at the store." My mother worked at one of the little buildings next to he marina, in fact my parents owned the small business. They would rent out one of their small fleet of boats, or they would take people on whale watching tours. It was great business in the summer, towards the fall and winter it tended to wane. Which was when my parents spent most of their time doing the handcrafted little bits and pieces of tourist crap that they would then sell when the tourist season came again. My mother had hired an extra man, Jon, to help out since both her kids had wolf duties and we were not as reliable as she needed. Plus since my father had passed away, he was not there anymore to share the burden of the store.
It used to surprise my friends that my father had done a lot of the beads, he could make absolutely amazing pieces of jewelry from some fishing line and colored bits of glass and plastic. I remember spending many a winter watching him and trying to learn his tricks. He had learned this art from his mother, who had learned it from her mother and so on.
"What can I help with, mom? Tourist season is almost at an end." I pointed out the obvious.
"Well Jon needs help cleaning the boats at night, and then you were always good at making the beads, maybe this winter you could make some necklaces and bracelets to sell come next spring." My mother was always practical. "And as the season finishes up you could help get the boats ready for winter."
"I will see mother." It was a good offer, I had to consider it. True I would not get money out of it once I started to make the necklaces but I could do my own hours which would be great considering I never knew when I would have to stop working to take care of wolf matters. The downside is that I would be forced to report to my mother, all the time. But if I needed some time off to deal with the wolf stuff my mother would understand, she knew my secrets.
I used the excuse that I had patrol duty from midnight to six to head to bed early, and to get away from my mother. I was afraid she might bring up Phil again.
Jake had "rented" us out to Sam, it was all for the good of the tribe or so he said. I had to run patrols again. It was not really safe for us to run patrols with members of Sam's pack since we could not hear them, so it was usually Jake and I. Seth would join us when he caught up a little more on his schoolwork. I have to admit I did not miss the constant chatter of the entire pack, Jake tended to be a little more respectful of my privacy. Some of the others did not know how to keep their thoughts to themselves, especially Paul. I so did not miss Paul.
I fell asleep for the first time in a long while with a glimmer of hope in my future. I would get away, I would find a job and then maybe get enough money to get the heck out of here.
I woke up about an hour before my patrol began with Jake, no one else was awake. I could hear Seth's soft snores in the next room as well as my mother's across the hall. She seriously needed to do something about that noise, I had read somewhere that snoring can be a sign of more serious health problems. I padded quietly to the kitchen to look for something to eat. Dinner had only been a couple of hours ago but running took a lot of energy - I had gotten enough of the raw stuff in the past couple of weeks to last me a lifetime. There is nothing more disgusting than fur and slimy rabbit bits going down your throat.
Looking in the fridge and deciding the leftovers were not that appetizing I decided to 'make' something to eat - which in my case meant cereal. It was a running joke among my family that I could not cook.
Grabbing a plastic bag I headed towards the woods, I did not bother with any shoes since soon I would take all my clothes off. Putting my clothes in the plastic bag to protect them from the damp weather I hid it behind a bush. Hey Jake are you there? I thought loudly as soon as I shifted, but there was no reply. It had been a quarter to midnight when I had left the house so we still had a few minutes left before out patrols officially began.
Enjoying the few more minutes of solitude I ran at full speed towards Jake's house, sticking mostly to the wooded areas. It was against tribal custom to shoot wolves, but since most members of the tribe did not know the real reason for this rule it was best not to be seen. Plus as big as some of the boys were they might be mistaken for a bear, and out here in the country everyone had a gun of some sort. It might not kill us but an ass full of shotgun pellets would hurt like hell.
So who is this "tourist"? Jake thought at me as soon as I felt him shift.
Jeez, hello to you too. Is there a werewolf gossip hotline, or a secret TV channel I don't know about? Jake should learn to mind his own business, and not try to pick out what he wanted to know from my brain.
What else is there to talk about? Especially since Sam is in such a tizzy. I heard him go through the list of things he was interested in. I did not want to hear about how cute and smart Nessie was, or how much she was growing. That was something that was bugging Jake a great deal, Nessie seemed to be aging too quickly, the way things were going now she would be an old lady in a few years time. I felt sorry for Jake, I should not think about it too much - considering we were sharing thoughts. I liked Jake, sort of, he was one of the few people that could understand what it was like to me. He had been left behind by the girl he loved.
I could feel Jake's thoughts echoing mine, he was picturing Nessie with grey hair and wrinkles. He was starting to depress me, so I decided to change the subject; Jake needed to think about something happier. So I started to contemplate the pros and cons of tampons versus pads. For heavy days I really preferred ...
Ewww please, please stop. Jake whined in my head. Yeah I knew how to torture, there was nothing a guy hated more than hearing about some girl's period. It is not like you use them anymore, you stopped doing all that stuff. Jake pointing this out to me was not very helpful, especially since I had started all this to make him feel better.
There you go reminding me again of how much my life sucks. He finally caught up with me as we headed for Quil's house to make a formal exchange of patrol duties. Sometimes being cut off from communications with the other pack was a pain, but these few instances were so worth the peace of the smaller pack.
Jake stepped outside the woods and gave a nod of acknowledgement towards Quil before running off into the forest. I took off at a full run, passing Jake, he might be bigger but I was faster. I slowed down to hop across a larger stream. I really hated getting my paws wet so I concentrated on that for a minute, that gave Jake enough time to catch up. Of course he just plowed through, splashing water everywhere including on me.
Look on the bright side, Jake started, but I interrupted his thoughts. I had gotten good at this lately, especially when I did not want to hear something.
Have you been smoking the same stuff as my brother, is this why you all of a sudden developed this annoying optimism? Jake had not been smoking anything, I knew why he was so happy, the imprinting. It was a miracle, about a week ago he was in a worse place than me. Then wham he sees Nessie and everything in the world is perfect. It was somewhat sickening to watch, especially the length with which he went to protect her. He even let Nessie bite him, it was a good thing she was not venomous, according to legend vampire venom was poison to our kind.
As I said look on the bright side, you can do dangerous things that a normal girl could never do. Like hop on a bike with a complete stranger. Jake was about as subtle as a rhinoceros when it came to trying to change the subject.
We both knew that I would trade all of my wolf skills and abilities to go back to being normal. We always want what we can't have. In my defense if it was not for the werewolf thing I would not have had a reason to escape Sam. So I would not need to accept a ride from a strange man.
So I heard you rode on a bike, was it not awesome? Jake was not always the most subtle person, but I could appreciate him attempting to change the subject.
His bike is a lot faster than yours. I admit the tone of my thoughts was smug.
This shut Jake up for a while, he contemplated catching a snack. Much to my disgust he stuck his nose to the ground and tried to pick up the scent of something to eat.
We continued our circuit around the Rez, it was a complete waste of time in my opinion but I was not in charge. Back in my fully human days I used to think the woods were completely silent at night, now I knew better. There was really no way to describe what it felt like to run through the dark woods late at night, listening to the sounds of the animals moving around. They heard us coming, no matter how silent we were they seemed to have a sixth sense that told them to freeze as we approached. That was just the sounds, now the smells were different too, we would run so fast that at times I did not really register what I had smelled for a mile or so after I had passed it. Sometimes that was a good thing, I did not want to know what I had just stepped in.
It took him a while but Jake finally tracked down a couple of rabbits to eat, they were pretty plump, fat and ready for winter. They no longer needed to worry about surviving the winter. I tried not to think too much about it as Jake devoured the entire rabbit.
After he had satisfied his hunger, he went back to thinking about my tourist. What do you mean his bike was faster?
Ah the male ego strikes again: what do you mean his is bigger? I got a full interrogation regarding the bike, what kind of bike was it? A bike, with two wheels. What kind of engine did it have? A fast one, well a really really fast one.
I had failed appallingly in getting all the details about the bike. For a moment I let my thoughts go to the details I could remember. His voice, was the number one on my list and the dimples. Jake interrupted my thoughts at that point with major gagging noises.
So you think he is hot, Jake was thinking about what I had shown him regarding Phil.
Yeah he is, want to come over to my house later and we can do each other's hair and nails. I give a mean pedicure. He seriously did not want to talk boys, did he?
Oh come on, I hate this more than you do, but think about it, maybe you can... I don't know, date him. Do that rebound thing. Jake had this entire scenario planned out, I would date this guy and turn happy all of a sudden. I could hear all the plans he had in his thoughts. I was surprised he was not picking out the color for the bridesmaid dress he was going to wear. I was thinking something in pale lilac that would go well with his skin tone, empire waisted of course, with a pale green ribbon to give it extra color.
Hey, I was just trying to help. It was only a suggestion. Jake had finally saw me putting the baby's breath and roses in his hair.
This man could be a serial killer and you are just throwing me at him. Though I had to admit Phil had been exceptionally kind to me, more kind than my initial behavior towards him deserved. He had gone out of his way to find me and return my jacket and had even offered me a ride. Most guys would have just turned tail and gotten the heck out of dodge when Sam glared at them.
See he is a nice guy, Jake interrupted.
So you want me to use some nice guy and then throw him away when I am done with him? For a moment I considered this scenario, it would be entertaining for a while; but I would not do to this stranger what was done to me. For some reason he struck me more like a bad boy than a good boy, he probably knows how to take care of himself, I told myself. I was so vain, what made me think this guy would want to go out with me? Especially after the first impression I must have made - angry girl, willing to get in your face and yell. I do not even know if I will ever see him again.
Yeah it sucks being used and then left for someone else. Jake knew what I was talking about, Bella had kind of used him for a rebound, until her Edward came back. Jake quickly dropped it after that, he could remember how much it sucked to be used in that way.
A/N: Thank you ladies for the encouragement and the criticism.
ABarbieStory: To answer your question yes we will be seeing more of Phil, but no he will not be taking Leah away from La Push; she has to do that for herself. I am glad you like Phil, as for what his kin folk are or are not you will just have to wait and find out.
GothChiq80: Glad you liked the story the first time around though I don't know how you read it with all the typos. Though I am sure it is still riddled with them despite of the fact that I do try to proofread a couple of times before I post.
Tonshii519: What was Phil thinking in the chapter when he gives Leah a ride?
What a pretty girl maybe I can take her home and chop her into little bitty pieces- all right, that was obviously a joke. I cannot come out and say everything because this is supposed to be from Leah's point of view but there might be clues that he gives Leah that she totally misses.
I altered the beginning of this chapter to show you Sam's reaction to Phil calling Leah Princess - thanks for the idea.
Sailor Alpha tomboy: Glad you liked it :D.
Twilighter: Thanks for the suggestions regarding my favorite Jailbait, I will keep them in mind. But ask Sassy to let him feel her up, he is far too much of a gentleman to ask that - even though he would really love to do that :D.