A/N: I don't own Twilight. So we're still on the Kim thing, but we've still got ways to go in regards to the big picture of this story. Here's chapter 62.

Enjoy.

LXII.

so i fuck with myself more than anybody else

Kim woke up angry for the first time the next morning. Pretending that nothing happened had never helped anybody, especially her, but still—it kind of scared her. It would have scared Leah, too, if she had been there.

In the kitchen, Kim found a piece of paper put up against the refrigerator under a magnet, right between Amy Winehouse and Aaliyah's faces.

Have to take care of some things at my mom's house, the note said. Call me if you need anything. -Lee

Kim removed the note and threw it away. Then she began to make some coffee, but she knew it wouldn't make her feel entirely better. She decided that skipping her classes would do the trick. That decision got her to relax a little bit.

She checked her cell phone to find exactly zero notifications, so she got desperate and checked Quil's account on Vine. The video of her and Bella had seventeen thousand loops now, and Quil had gained hundreds of more followers.

Kim scrolled down, and Jared's comments had been drowned out by the multitudes of other comments. People tagged other people in it, and there seemed to be a war going on between #teamthickwhitegirl and #teamlatina. Kim spent a moment trying to figure out who was the Latina in the Vine until she realized that her relative ethnic ambiguity had won out yet again.

Over a cup of coffee, Kim unfollowed Quil on Vine and prayed that his lameness would drown out all the noise and cause his current followers to lose interest. The muteness would help.

She finally set her phone down, and the feeling of loneliness swept over her, but then it felt like contentedness. It didn't hurt. Ultimately, Kim had her own back, and it wasn't daunting. She didn't need much else besides herself. She fucked with herself more than anybody else, and that was okay.

It was all love.

Not much later, Kim decided to pay Quil a visit. After thinking about it, she wasn't angry that he had recorded a video of her accidentally outing herself, and she wasn't even angry that Jared knew anymore. She was just furious that she hadn't killed Jared last night for breaking into her condo and attacking her. Any normal person would be furious.

That morning, she decided to buy a gun. She knew that Quil had to have some sort of plug.

So she ventured out to La Push. She went there more often these days, but it still had a sense of alienness to her. A sense that the reservation wasn't hers and could never be hers. She felt like a fraud and since she was only a quarter Quileute, she just might be.

When Kim approached Quil's front door, she stopped dead in her tracks and thought she had the wrong house. Metal bars now covered his front door and all the windows. The reservation wasn't as inherently dangerous to live on as it was depressing, but then again, what did she know? Nothing.

She banged her fists on the front door, persistent. She never got an answer. Not even Quil's mom was home, and she was always home. Kim knew he was home, though; Quil had nowhere else to be.

When she didn't get a response, Kim called the cell phone number she had reached Quil with just last night in order to obtain Molly, but it was now disconnected, which she should have expected. If Quil had as many brains as he had burner phones, then he'd be in good hands.

She couldn't just leave, though—Quil's help could mean everything to her. She walked around the house, to the basement door, which was also covered in metal bars. He had to be doing something bigger than weed, and it had to be serious. It just didn't make sense, though. He had been okay for the last couple months, since she'd checked on him in August, cracked out to the max. He'd been fine since then. Quil had been sober at Jacob's get-together just the other day, and even though she had met him halfway last night for her fix, he had seemed okay.

If anybody knew Quil, it was Kim, and the guy was an open book. He wore his heart and his mind and his everything out on his sleeve for the world to see, and if the world was beating him up again, everyone would see the bruises, too.

She pounded her fist against the door. "Open up, open up, open up," she mumbled.

Quil opened the wooden door and brought the metal one forward. Wearing boxers and a t-shirt in the middle of a weekday, he had absolutely nothing to do. He looked like a bum, but he looked sober and clean—he looked normal.

"You come here alone?" Quil asked, glancing cautiously around his backyard.

"Duh," Kim replied. "Quit playing."

She stepped inside his basement and immediately wanted to leave. She would have if her circumstances weren't so urgent. The place smelled of stale beer, weed, and straight fire.

Kim didn't take a seat; she wouldn't be here for long, so she just leaned against the door. Quil didn't attempt to clean up a little bit. Who did he have to impress? Claire was gone, he was too goofy to have much game, and this was his home, after all.

"Whatcha need, Bambi?" he asked. "'Cause if you need another high, you really should have called first."

She didn't beat around the bush. "I need to know how much I can buy a handgun off you for," she said bluntly.

"Is someone trying to fuck with you?" he asked warily. He cared, even a little—even if he had to.

"Not now," Kim replied, "but I have a feeling that's gonna be happening really, really soon."

"Well, what kinda gun you thinkin' about?"

Kim was precise as if she'd rehearsed her lines over and over (which she certainly had on the ride here). "Small," she specified, "but can put a man down."

Quil thought for a moment and then exhaled long and slow. "I'm sorry, Bambi," he told her, "but guns aren't my thing."

"Whose thing is guns, then? You have to know somebody."

"I know a guy, but he doesn't really like to fuck with the rez. Finds it kinda sketchy."

"Where's he live, then?"

"The other side of Forks," he said. "Not out in the sticks, where you used to live, but in the woods. It's hella low-key, and if you get fucked up out there, no one's gonna find you, but that's where he does most of his business."

"I'll do everything I have to," Kim said. "What's his name?"

"Edmond. Edmond, uh..." Quil shut his eyes, trying to remember. "Hale. Edmond Hale, or Jasper Cullen. Sometimes he goes by Jasper Cullen."

Peculiar name. "Okay," Kim said. "You got a phone number for him?"

"Yeah, yeah," Quil said, walking across the room to his desk to pick up his cell phone. "I'll call him first, though, so he knows you're coming."

"Thanks."

"Yeah, yeah." He scrolled through the contacts in his phone and then called the guy. "Hey, Jasper, it's Quil. Don't freak out, but I've got someone who needs a handgun… No, yeah, she's decent… Yeah, she's a fine little piece with dark, curly hair. She's about five foot four and the prettiest damn thing you've ever seen. You can't miss her…" He was looking at Kim the entire time he spoke on the phone. "No, all she needs is a fuckin' pistol, man. She'll be coming up on you in about ten minutes. I'm real close to her, so treat her right and don't pull any shit, okay? Thanks, man." Then he hung up.

"It's not a blind date," Kim said. "You didn't have to say all that."

"He just wanted to know what you look like so he knows what to expect," Quil assured her. "And, besides, it's not like it's not true."

"How sweet of you," she said sarcastically. He didn't catch on.

"If I ask you something," he began, "would you try not to get mad?"

"Go ahead."

"If you weren't gay, would you have given me a chance?"

She realized that the term bisexual wasn't going to work on everyone, so she just sighed. "I'm not really looking for anyone right now, Quil."

"That doesn't answer the question, Bambi."

"You're one of my closest friends," she told him, "and even though you're a fuckass for making that Vine of me, that's not gonna change."

He shrugged. "I guess that's cool," he said. "I can live in the friend zone."

She didn't want to be overtly rude and tell him to get used to it, so she just nodded. "Can I have Jasper's number?" she asked.

"Yeah, for sure," he replied, and then he turned back to the desk. He picked up a napkin and an old pen, and after scratching the corner of the napkin forever, he finally got some ink out of it and etched in some digits.

He walked the napkin over to her. "Here," he said.

"And this number isn't going to mysteriously disconnect?" Kim asked.

"Nah," Quil said. "It's real. He only deals with guns."

"How much do you think this will cost?" she wondered.

"I gave him a referral, so hopefully, it'll be discounted. I'm thinking a hundred bucks."

"Okay, cool. Thanks a lot, Quil."

"No problem, Bambi."

She turned around to leave, but then he called her name. He almost never called her anything but Bambi, so she knew he was serious.

"Yeah?" she asked.

"Be careful," he told her. "Life round here ain't as nice as it used to be."

Kim called Jasper as soon as she got to her car, and they agreed to meet out towards the woods after she visited the ATM. He told her what kind of car he would be driving, and they met on the side of the empty road next to a giant Douglas fir.

Jasper was a lanky, awkward kind of guy, and the trench coat he wore didn't make him look any less sketchy. He didn't seem to be much older than Kim, either. He was a pale white guy with copper hair and green eyes, and he bore a strange resemblance to somebody she thought she'd met before, but she couldn't put her finger on it.

"So I take it you're Kim from the phone," he said. "Q described you as really pretty and I'd have to say that's accurate."

"That's me, I guess," she replied. "And you're Jasper?"

"Call me J," he said.

"Okay, then, J."

"You needed something small, right? Like a pistol?"

She nodded. "Yeah."

"I've got a 22 magnum that should be able to buy you time if you need it in a situation. I normally sell them for about a hundred, but you're cute so I guess you deserve a discount, right?" He gave a creepy smile but she just played along, smiling uncomfortably. "I'll need eighty," he told her.

She dug into the pocket of her jeans and took out four twenty dollar bills. She handed them to him, and he carefully removed the gun from his jacket while tucking in the money in one swift motion.

"It's loaded and ready to go," he told her. "Hopefully, you know what to do with it."

She nodded, carefully taking the pistol. It was cold in her hands and she felt that she might shoot herself in the foot just by thinking about how little she knew about guns.

"Thanks, J," she said, awkwardly trying to keep the weapon concealed at her side.

"No problem, sweetie," he said. "Call me anytime."

She nodded and then returned to her car. I shouldn't have to, she thought.

On the way home, Kim came up with her plan. It wasn't complicated or even that well thought-out. Kim would just have to be ready if Jared were to ever return. The last thing he'd told her was that if she said anything, he would kill her. Prior to last night, she hadn't taken him seriously.

Now there was no room to fuck around.

Despite the fact that Jared had attacked her, Kim really didn't want to shoot him. She didn't want to shoot anybody. And most importantly, she didn't want to end up firing a gun she didn't know how to use and shoot herself by accident. That would be embarrassing—and messy.

She had work later, and she ought to exercise herself, but Kim found herself on YouTube for hours. She had locked up her gun in the glove compartment of her car, but she couldn't help but watch videos upon videos regarding handguns. Obviously, practicing in real time would be more effective than just watching videos on the Internet, but she couldn't bring herself to retrieve the weapon. She was already scared. After multiple videos, the only thing she knew how to do for sure was remove bullets.

Then she had her plan: she would keep the gun with her in case Jared returned, but it would be empty. Jared was plenty of things like rude, homophobic, crazy, and kind of ugly, but he for sure wasn't smart. He wouldn't stand a chance against what he thought was a bullet.

Kim wasn't religious, but she prayed to God that Jared was as dumb as she thought he was.

A/N: The next chapter will feature some action, and then we'll return to our scheduled Leah/Bella/Jacob/Paul program in the chapter following.

Thanks as always,

HS