25. Iowa

"He kind of freaked me out."

"How so?"

"He's really possessive of you. Like, if I can't have her no one will type of stuff."

I blew my hit into his face and he comically tried to suck up all the smoke. "It's okay. He's not even really like that, he just feels a little strongly when it comes to me."

"He said that if you guys broke up he would kill your next boyfriend. That doesn't scare you at all?"

"The last time I dated someone else, he let them beat him up until he started talking shit about me mid-fight. I really can't see Seth getting homicidal."

Mark shrugged. "I think he's worried about me and you. Which is honestly pretty flattering. I mean, I'm not gay but I know a good looking guy when I see one, and Seth is one good looking guy."

I was laughing too hard to breathe.

"What do you think about this imprint stuff?" he asked once I'd calmed back down.

"I don't know. It doesn't really make sense to me, but I mean... I guess I'm thankful for it. Seth always says that he would have loved me anyways, but I don't think he would have stuck around long enough to even get to know me under normal circumstances."

"I knew he was totally wrapped up in you before. Now I'm thinking he doesn't see anything beyond you."

I raised a brow. "Is that a bad thing?"

"Not for you, I guess," he finally answered. "Unless you ever want to leave him. Honestly, I've always thought you guys were a really odd couple. You're nothing alike. But apparently you were made for each other?"

I giggled. "I don't really get it either sometimes. I like to think that he's the calm and I'm the storm. He's a rock and I'm a river. But we're not always like that, so I'm not sure what it is... I do know that we're right, though, despite how strange it can seem."

"Does the imprint effect you the same way it does him?"

"No. It has an effect but not like it is with him. I think I love him in a more natural way." Which was just fine with me, so long as I got to keep him. I didn't care why he loved me anymore, just that he did.

He sighed. "Okay, vent over now. Thanks for listening. And to be clear, Seth is still my bro... I just needed to get that off my chest."

I shrugged my shoulders. "That's what I'm here for, right? Best friend and all." I passed him the blunt and picked up my guitar, plucking out random notes until I picked which wave to ride.

"What is that?" Mark asked as he trashed our roach.

"Slipknot," I answered.

"Holy shit. That's incredible."

I growled out a "Yeah!" before I started singing the song. "Relax, it's over. You belong to me. I fill your mouth with dirt. Relax, it's over. You can never leave. I take your second digit with me... Love. You are... my first. I can barely breathe, I find you fascinating. You are my favorite, lay you down to sleep. It's all that I can do to stop... Love. So blue, so broken. Paper doll decays, I haven't left you yet. So cold, subversive. Your eyes are full of bleach. Tomorrow, I will go away again... Love."

Mark was jamming and drumming on the table as he screamed the end with me. "You are mine! You will always be mine! I can tear you apart! I can recombine you! All I want is to covet you all! You belong to me, I will kill you to love you!"

"How do you do that?" he asked after the last few notes.

"I don't know," I answered honestly. "I just have an ear for it. I started doing acoustic covers with just the guitar parts and it never sounded right, so I started incorporating the other instruments. Now it's like second nature."

"You're like a jack of all trades," he smiled. He lit up another blunt, but I was getting antsy and wanted to leave.

"Let's go to the beach or something," I suggested before an idea struck me. "Oh my god!" I jumped up excitedly. "Get your shit, we're going to the beach."

He looked around, snuffed the blunt out and stuck it in his pocket. "I'm all packed."

We pulled up to an almost empty First Beach and I got my things out of the car. "I haven't shown anyone else this yet," I told him. I was strangely nervous about it.

"What's with the outfit?" He gestured to my crop top and open sided harem pants.

I glared in his direction. "Trust me, it's necessary." Or, it would be for another person. Apparently, my clothing became fire proof while on my body. Not the case if it was off my body - like, say, in my floor where I'd accidentally melted a chunk of my only Massive Attack t-shirt.

Mark sat down on a large piece of driftwood, well out of the way of any other beach-goers. "What are you going to do with those?"

I had a huge smile on my face. "Watch and see. Play the song I put on pause."

The beat started and I pushed aside my nervousness. I held my fans up close to my face and blew across the fourteen wicks, immediately igniting them. The sky grew darker, but I was in control enough to not start a huge storm.

I was thankful for the control, and I was about to put it to another test. I started to dance with my fire fans, bending and curving with the music as I made them rotate in my hands. I caught my rhythm and closed my eyes, allowing it to take me over like a wave.

I hadn't practiced this in a while and had been worried I couldn't do it anymore.

I shouldn't have been.

My natural ability combined itself with the magic inside of me and took me to a new place. I was moving without trying, I was dancing in a trance. My body felt as if it were being compelled by a greater force as the fire spun around me.

Just for a moment, I wanted badly to know what it would feel like to let the fire consume me.

I was sitting on my couch hours later, alone and stoned as I ate a burrito and wrote disturbing things in one of many notebooks when I got an unexpected interruption.

Wonder what she's really like. Hopefully she won't be pissed I just showed up here.

It was clear as day inside of my head, but the thoughts were not my own. I assumed it was a witch projecting to me, but as I rounded the corner to open my door for my visitor, I didn't feel that particular brand of power anywhere near me. I felt something, though.

"Oh, hey," Renesmee said, her fist still raised to knock at my door.

"Hey," I said, stepping back so she could come in. I was trying to not show my confusion, but I had no idea why she was here. We had met a few times and got along fine, but I definitely wouldn't call us friends.

Deftones!

"Um... I think you're sending me thoughts," I told her. It felt like an invasion, and I wasn't into it.

"Oh... sorry," she mumbled, looking me over. "Are you... I mean, I can't project to regular people."

Oops. I'd been trying to keep the witch situation secret from the wolves and the Cullens. I wasn't sure if it needed to be, but the idea of them all knowing was scary to me. "Well, I'm not a regular person, I guess."

Her brown eyes were glowing. "You're powerful. Does anyone else know?"

"Only Seth and Josh."

She nodded her head. "Gotcha. I'll keep it to myself."

I sat down on the couch and she followed suit. "So... what's up?"

"Well... this is kind of random, but I was wondering if you'd sign this for me." She reached into her purse and pulled out my band's debut album.

It really took me by surprise. "You listen to my music?"

"Yeah, I love it!" she answered excitedly.

I turned to get a marker off the table next to the couch as she looked around.

"Is Seth here?"

"No, not til about five fifteen."

"I miss him," she said, and it made me feel bad. Seth wanted to be around me and I usually wanted to be home, or at the bar or something. We didn't do a lot of hanging with the pack anymore.

"Do you want to chill here until he gets home?" I offered, and she brightened visibly.

"That would be great," she smiled. "I've been wanting to get to know you, anyways. Your life really fascinates me. I saw that video of you with Chino Moreno..."

I tried not to laugh as much as I wanted to. That night had been a blast for me, but I guess it didn't look so good from an outside perspective, especially to people that cared about my man and understood that he didn't appreciate my little show. "Yeah, fascinating," I agreed. I repositioned my feet and the right one tapped something, causing my eyes to grow wide. I'd left my bong sitting right there in the living room floor without realizing it.

Renesmee's eyes darted down and she saw it sitting there.

"Sorry," I said quickly, picking it up to take it to my bedroom. I was pretty sure that she was only like, ten or eleven years old, which made this situation pretty inappropriate. Even if she looked the same age as me.

"Don't worry," she laughed. "I'm in high school, I see it all."

"Yeah, but if Charlie heard about that... Actually, he'd probably flip shit if he knew you were here at all." Sketchy as fuck.

"My parents know I'm here," she said flippantly. "I do a lot of things Charlie wouldn't exactly approve of."

I smiled at her. "Well, let's keep it PG just in case."

"No problem," she agreed.

I brought her downstairs and showed her around a bit, then sat across the room to smoke as she studied the art and the instruments that made up the large room's decor. She shot me a questioning glance as she ran her fingers lightly across the strings of my stage guitar, a beautiful black ESP with cherry red pickups. "You can play him... just be careful," I told her. That guitar and I had been through some shit together and it was my baby.

"It's gorgeous," she said as she wrapped the strap across her body. She slid the pick from between the strings and plucked a few notes. "I'm not a very good player," she shrugged.

I snubbed out my cigarette and walked over, turning on the amp that my baby was plugged into. I donned the nearest electric guitar and started playing the rhythm to one of my bands songs. It took her a minute, but she started copying me pretty well. "I think you're better than you think you are."

"I'm still trying to find my niche," she said. Her phone started to ring and she pulled the guitar free and set it gently back in its stand before answering.

I wasn't trying to eavesdrop or anything, but she was standing mere feet from me and having this very teenager-y giggle fest as she twirled a ringlet curl around one of her fingers. So clearly talking to a boy.

"You and Jacob are so cute," I told her after she had hung up.

"Oh, that wasn't Jake. That's my boyfriend Tyler."

My mouth actually dropped open. I was totally stunned and I wasn't completely sure why, but the feeling wasn't waning.

"Yeah, weird, I know." She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. "Jake has this problem with me where my age really bothers him... I got tired of waiting."

"I thought that you guys were a couple," I responded. I distinctly remembered seeing them kiss one time at a bonfire.

"We actually were for awhile. Like, I got to say he was my boyfriend and I was his girlfriend, but he wouldn't do anything beyond hold my hand and kiss me like somebody kisses their mother."

"Oh." So it was a physical thing. And I had no idea what to say to her.

"I kind of started dating someone else out of spite. And now I'm still stuck because I want to be with Jake but I want more from him than he's willing to give to me."

"Um... Well." This was going to be weird. "Do you... ya know. Take care of yourself?"

She looked kind of confused.

I sighed and looked at the floor. "Do you masturbate?"

"Oh," she giggled. I looked up and she was blushing. "Well, yeah. But I want the real thing."

"You're in a pickle. Is it just the age thing that bothers him?"

"Ugh. Yes. And it's not like I can make time move as fast as I do. I need him to see me as a woman instead of a little girl or a teenager."

I looked her up and down; her body was extremely similar to mine, both in height and width. But she was wearing flare jeans, a white t-shirt with a bubblegum pink jacket on top, and sneakers. "Alright, hun. Let's do a makeover."

It didn't even take an hour to turn her from a teeny bopper to an edgy woman. She was so pretty that she barely needed makeup, but that eyeliner was doing wonders.

Seth came in as I was styling her hair and looked really surprised. "Hey, Ness!" I backed up for a moment so they could hug each other without me in the way. He gave me a big kiss, lingering just long enough to ensure my blood was boiling. "You guys having a girls day?"

"I guess so," I laughed as I mussed Renesmee's long, coppery waves. "Check you out," I said to her as I spun my computer chair around.

She examined herself, smiling slowly before peeking up at me. "Think this will work?"

"I think it kind of ups your chances," I shrugged.

She looked over at Seth. "Can we all hang out soon? I was planning on staying here for a while because I haven't seen you in forever..." she smiled devilishly at me. "But I don't want to put this to waste."

She and I traded numbers and promised to get together soon before I sent her off. I wasn't sure if I'd done her a favor or if I should be jailed for helping a pre-teen aged girl get laid for the first time.

Probably both.