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Chapter 49

Was That It for the Mystery?


Jake


"Well, then tell me," Brandon asked me.

Panic gripped me, but I didn't know what to do. Seeking help, I slowly turned to Leah, who was obviously as clueless as I was.

None said anything, no one moved. Jasper and Alice were also sitting on the sofa like lifeless statues. Eternity seemed to pass. A knock on the door shook us all awake again.

Rosalie.

"Hey, Jake. Where's Edward? Never mind. The Audi's okay again and the dent's gone. The replacement part for the VW Golf is coming in ..." she began, stopping herself from continuing to speak after she realized that Leah and I - the only ones she could see - were getting a tense.

"Thank you, Rose ... This is just a bad time," I whispered to her.

She nodded, we exchanged car keys and she disappeared.

I let my back fall against the closed front door, nervously driving through my hair and considering what I should do.

"He noticed too much to deny it," whispered Edward inhumanly softly, who had just come down the stairs with Mom.

'What all then', I asked in thoughts. I needed more info. Something with which I could grab Bran.

"Your healing. Today and last week ... That Mike looked worse than you ... At lunch today at recess ... He saw Leah on Saturday, but thought it was his imagination because he was drinking champagne with Jenny ..." he began to enumerate.

Bingo!

I grinned at Leah and she grinned back.

I leaned casually on the doorway to the living room with my arms folded in front of my chest and my eyebrows raised. Leah did the same. Played accusing, we now looked down on him in sibling unity.

"Champagne, hmmm ...?" I murmured in an accusing tone of voice. If there was alcohol anywhere, it was always Brandon who screamed the loudest for it to be distributed fairly among everyone.

"Well ..." Bran was embarrassed searching for words and looked to the floor.

Then it had probably 'clicked' in his head and he looked up again. This time it was no longer an angry or challenging gaze. He was troubled. A huge question mark lit up over his head. That was enough.

"Then you tell first.", I then urged him and let myself sink unselfconsciously sideways on one end of the sofa.

He wandered with his eyes over the other listeners, who all just looked at him impatiently but friendly. He visibly swallowed and then looked at me strangely.

Was that fear? I hadn't seen that in him for a long time.

I smiled at him and finally moved out to the patio with him and Leah, where he then loosened up a bit.

The others - especially Edward - would also be able to hear everything from inside, but Bran gave that a certain security.

Bran sat down in one of the chairs and Leah and I sat on the little wall so we could see into the living room. He was biting on his fingernails.

He had Googled after we got back from Forks and were so physically changed. Not because he didn't believe us. He'd known us long enough to know we wouldn't do steroids or anything. He had always been a little jealous of my physique, which I had never excessively or specifically trained for either. Must have been in the genes. He wanted to find out what he had to do to finally get rid of his gangly physique. He could always train as he wanted, but hardly anything happened. He had found nothing, which explained our change within a week.

Then my brawl with Mike. He had seen exactly how I had looked afterwards and later in class there was nothing more to see of it. Moreover, he trusted me quite well to have a chance against Mike, but not as he had seen it today during the lunch break. Without any effort, I had twisted his arm as if he were just a toddler.

The thing in the parking lot with Edward's siblings. He hadn't seen it all - he'd overslept and didn't arrive until the bell rang - so he had no clue what it all meant. We seemed to be on the verge of a brawl, but then I had calmly sent Becky off to class and looked behind her for a long time. Then on Thursday everything was love, peace, and harmony with them and we were taken to school by Edward on Friday. Not to mention how trusting that had seemed to him this morning. Our bodyguards on Friday at practice seemed just as strange to him. He was convinced that something had happened on Friday because Emmett and Rosalie had suddenly disappeared.

Saturday evening. When he got something out of the car, he thought he couldn't believe his eyes. There was a huge white wolf, where only moments before Leah had stood. He really blamed that on the alcohol at that moment, as it immediately left and Leah was back.

Another hard punch from Mike today and the fact that our classmates were visiting my grown Mom. That Jasper and Alice were here had nothing to do with Leah or me, otherwise we would have been sitting in the house with them and not playing basketball outside. Rosalie was looking for Edward at our place, although at that moment it seemed much stranger to him that she was bringing the Audi back. And Edward was also there, but he had not seen him before. And of course, that I could catch the ball without making a face.

Bran took a deep breath after he had let all the uncertainties off his chest at once.

Edward was probably right. We had no choice. We would not find an explanation for everything and even if we could somehow logically justify everything or talk our way out of it, Bran would continue to watch us and thus probably find more inconsistencies.

I glanced through the windows at Edward and he nodded. I looked at Leah. She also nodded in affirmation.

"I'm going to tell you a little story ... We are Native Americans and in our tribe there have very old legends ..." I began, after Mom asked in the meantime if we needed anything and brought us chips and something to drink.

Edward had already told her, what all Bran had noticed and she was very nervous.

When I finished telling the story of our tribe, Bran looked at us with wide eyes. I couldn't tell what he thought of it all.

He stood up and turned to the windows.

"So ..." he muttered more to himself than spoke to us. "Among your people, there are people who can phase into wolves. Not all, just some, if they have the appropriate gene. And their job is then to protect your tribe from the so-called 'Cold Ones' ... So far, so clear."

He leaned indecisively against a window sill and just stared at us as Edward and Mom joined us outside.

"Brandon?" Mom asked anxiously, since Bran just wasn't saying anything.

She put a hand on his arm in a motherly way. I did the same to her, so that he noticed the temperature difference that I had already mentioned. Momentarily he looked at me, now feeling the direct difference with my mom, at the same time slightly loosened his stance and looked at our hands. Edward also took his hand. Again a contrast Bran noticed immediately and peered with his eyes at Edward.

"You're human, Mrs. B?" he inquired for good measure.

Mom nodded.

"So, you two are wolves, then? Spirit warriors, as you call them."

Leah and I nodded.

"And you and your siblings are these 'Cold Ones'?"

Edward nodded as well.

He freed himself somewhat indignantly from all our hands.

"And why aren't you all fighting each other, but pretending to be best friends?" he asked further.

It wasn't a request to do just that. He just didn't understand. In his eyes, we were not doing what we actually existed to do.

"Long story," I replied.

"Then get started, you're just in practice," he insisted me almost smiling and sinking back into the chair.

Alice and Jasper came out to us.

Apparently, Bran took it all better than I would have guessed.

"When vampires are transformed, they don't change any more. Apart from turning pale and cold, they don't look a day older than at the time of their transformation," I began and was interrupted.

"How old are you then?" asked Bran curiously, looking up at Edward and Jasper.

"I think we'll skip that for now," Alice grinned cheerfully at him. "Or you'll have a heart attack... or a lot of trouble when you ask Rosalie about her age."

"So old then!" he stated to himself, and I went on to tell him that Mom had gotten to know these vampires when she was our age.

"... and now they're together again," I finished, and Bran stared at Mom and Edward, who by now were standing in front of one another, and Edward had his arms around Mom.

Shocked. Stunned. But he surprised us all.

"Wow ... That's what I call love ... I guess we don't have a say in that!" he stated, thinking he had an ally in me.

But there I had to disappoint him unfortunately.

"YOU don't have a say in that," I clarified and now also told him about imprinting, which Becky didn't even know about yet. I had deliberately told her nothing about it. Even if I no longer had a choice, she certainly did. I wasn't going to take that choice away from her just because she felt obligated to me by this supernatural thing. "I imprinted on Becky," I ended again.

"And Becky knows about all this?" asked Bran some more.

"Everything except the imprinting. So as not to influence her," I explained, and he nodded in understanding.

"And Ben?" he now looked at Leah.

"I told him on Saturday, at least the part about the wolves and showed him because he just wouldn't believe it one bit. He didn't understand that well," Leah whispered and Mom immediately took her in her arms when she already started crying again.

Mom then went upstairs with her and Alice in tow - Leah wanted to go to bed.

"I think I'd like to have some more to drink!" then Bran murmured.

"Water? Coke? Juice?" asked Edward.

"Whiskey!" said Bran dryly.

We smirked and Edward got a glass of David's holy whiskey.

Exceptional.

"What about your hand?" he then remembered as he immediately emptied the glass.

I awkwardly tugged the bandage off my hand and showed it to him. He felt and marveled at it from all sides and reached for the other for comparison.

"One more, please!" he raised his empty glass in disbelief. "What about the sun, garlic, crucifixes, wooden stakes, holy water, and whatever else is in the movies?" he then asked in a chatty tone.

"It's all myth!" Jasper began to explain the difference between truth and Hollywood.

"And then what does it take to kill you?" asked Bran afterwards.

"Me! ... For example," I said matter-of-factly and grinned at Brandon.

He grinned back.

"Cool!"

"The whole thing also has a huge hook!" I added. "You absolutely cannot tell anyone! ... None of us or Edward's family can risk being exposed. We should not really exist and people should not know about us. Even our grandparents have no idea what we are ... No one, Bran. Your parents. Your brother. Also, not Jenny. No one!"

"Clear!" Bran only replied.

He was probably just thinking about who would even believe all that crap without having him committed to the closed ward.

Edward nodded and Mom and Alice came back to us.

Mom had called Bran's parents in the intermediately.

"Okay, Jake. I have no reason not to believe all this bullshit. I promise to shut up ... But I am interested in one thing, however!" he said, looking at me.

I knew what he wanted, of course.

"Sure?" I asked.

He nodded resolutely.

Our terrace was nicely protected from unwanted gazes by all the trees. So, I took off my clothes, which confused Bran. In an amused way.

"Striptease?" he chuckled.

"These are the only jeans that fit me. And they're not even mine," I simply retorted, which Bran understood even less. "I don't want to rip them, too."

"Hmmm ... and what does Leah's closet look like?" Alice then asked with interest.

"Oh no, Alice," Mom threatened, "You stay out of our closets!"

I sat down on the ground so I wouldn't be so huge right away and I phased.

Brandon was speechless. And of course, he was afraid, but he tried to hide it. Slowly I straightened up to my full height. He involuntarily took a step back.

"How awesome is that?" he asked after regaining his speech.

I was already relieved. Maybe it would have been better for Ben if he had also seen something abnormal little by little and had his own thoughts about it. Just like Bran. Like Mom. The truth was then perhaps easier to understand and not as bad as the own assumptions.

"He's too chicken to ask you, but he'd love to see how fast you are!" laughed Edward, and Brandon gulped.

"Where ...?" he asked.

"We are supernatural beings. And some of us have supernatural abilities to boot ... I can hear thoughts," Edward explained to him in a very soothing voice as I lay down on the ground.

"That's how you knew about the champagne."

I nodded. Grinning.

"Looks silly!"

Great. Maybe Bran wanted to experience physically how fast I was, and Edward asked him if he dared to ride me.

He carefully climbed onto my back, not quite knowing how to hold on.

'Man, don't make such a fuss! I'm not made of sugar. Not even Becky was that squeamish the first time.'

Edward relayed my thoughts, chuckling, and Bran pulled himself together.

Alice and Jasper accompanied us a bit and Bran was visibly surprised how fast they were too. They waved kindly as I made my way back.


Back home, I saw Mom and Edward on the patio.

Smooching.

I leapt gracefully over our fence, hearing a stifled short yelp from Brandon, and then stopped in the middle of the lawn.

Edward immediately came running and helped Bran get off of me.

I had probably exaggerated a bit with the jump. Bran held on convulsively to my fur. When he slipped off me, I saw that he was pale as a sheet and babbling incomprehensible stuff.

Edward got him another whiskey and then sent us to bed after Bran calmed down. After all, it was already after midnight and tomorrow was school.

I was lying in my bed and he was on a mattress on the floor. Quietly we still chatted.

He thought it was all just cool and couldn't understand at all why Ben had reacted so spitefully. On the other hand, it had probably been quite a shock when one was confronted with it out of nowhere. His own fears were delightful, but varied. Everything Hollywood had to offer. CIA, zombies, mutants, superheroes, drugs, aliens.

Edward came again to remind us at it that we should be asleep.

"How do you actually drink your coffee in the morning?" I asked Bran as Edward was just pulling the door shut behind him.

"With milk, why?"

"No reason."


Thank you for reading!