Chapter 49: Such Sharp Teeth

It took quite some time before Leah resumed her human form. When she finally did, they found her as naked as the day she was born. Louisa offered her dress for cover. It was covered in blood from Louisa's nose and torn after her mad dash through the woods. According to Leah, 'it reeked of death'. ' But, considering Leah was in her birthday suit, Louisa didn't think she had much room to criticise her laundering.

Louisa stood shivering in her thin silk slip and tried to stem the flow of blood as Leah dressed. On Leah's much smaller frame, the dress came down to her shins, giving her the appearance of a child wearing their mother's clothes. Still, it would be enough for their return trip through the woods, which they completed in silence: Leah and Sam in shock, and Louisa trying to swallow down the bile that threatened to overtake her.

Whilst she didn't think she had a concussion, she knew that something was off inside her brain. Things were too bright, too warm… too much around her. It felt like she was watching the world around her in ultra-high-def. on a television screen with a wonky antenna—she could technically see the pictures, but they were warped. Wrong. Not made for her. Louisa had a sneaking suspicion that her psychometry was to blame.

She could feel her panicked memory already imprinted in the earth as she walked. It pricked at the edge of her consciousness, and Louisa tried not to flinch every time she saw the ghost of herself sprinting in the opposite direction. Her head pounded, and her vision swam. She was freezing, and, as an extra 'screw you' from the universe, it had started to rain.

When they finally emerged from the woods (only an hour after they'd entered, yet somehow felt like ages), they were greeted by a base camp of dozens of volunteers from both La Push and Forks. Louisa stepped to the side as Leah's parents hurtled across the lawn and crashed into their daughter. She watched them for a moment before walking towards her car, wondering how she was going to make it home. There was no way she could drive in her current state, but she wasn't about to leave her car behind.

She had made it all of twenty steps when she heard Mrs Clearwater ask, "Why are you covered in blood?"

"It's not mine," Leah reassured her mother. "It's Louisa's."

Every adult within earshot turned their attention towards Louisa. Unfortunately, this meant they also turned their torches toward her, and a small cry escaped her throat when the light seared her retinas. The squelch of footsteps in the mud informed her of someone's approach, and a moment later, something warm was draped around her shoulders.

Water-resistant, military-grade, standard issue, black; fishing protect baseball bella home safe—

"Thank you, Chief Swan," Louisa whispered, trying to block the onslaught of information.

"Your nose…" he began, his voice gruff with concern.

"I lost a fight with a tree branch." It wasn't her most brilliant lie, but she thought he bought it.

"It started bleeding before we ran into the brush," Sam corrected.

"It happens all the time," she explained. At least that part was true. "It's really nothing to worry about."

Another set of hands grabbed her, cradling her jaw. Smaller, cold, calloused—a nurse's hands.

"Open your eyes for me, Louisa." Although the command was firm, it wasn't unkind. Louisa complied, and Mrs Clearwater clicked her tongue. "Did you hit your head?"

Louisa debated if she should lie, but Sam took it upon himself to answer yet again. "She didn't."

Mrs Clearwater pursed her lips with concern. "Why don't you come inside, dear. We'll get you dried off."

Louisa tried to protest but was promptly ignored and ushered inside the Clearwater's house. She was directed into one of the chairs at the kitchen table and handed a box of tissues and a wet flannel to clean herself up. Not that it really did much good as the blood continued to gush out of her nose, but Louisa appreciated the gesture.

Tucking her chin and squeezing her nostrils shut, Louisa tried to focus on cleaning herself up instead of the tense atmosphere of the room. Her mind felt gelatinous as foreign memories poked and prodded at her brain, attempting to gain entrance. Usually, she could filter out the extraneous information, but something had happened in the woods. Before, she had been able to pick up on the energy of an object or a person, but it had been an intangible thing she could ignore if she pleased.

These memories, though, clung to her skin like spiderwebs, sticky and irritating, demanding to be witnessed regardless of what Louisa wanted. And Louisa didn't want to see them. She wanted to curl up with Jasper in their bed and forget that she had seen one of her best friends turn into a wolf. Never in her life had she resented her deductive reasoning skills or psychometry as much as she did at that moment.

"Would someone like to explain what the hell is going on?" Mr Clearwater asked, pulling Louisa out of her spiralling thoughts. He was standing across the kitchen, leaning against the bench with his arms crossed, his expression wavering between furious, terrified, and confused. Mrs Clearwater stood beside him, a comforting hand on his arm as she shot the three teens a concerned look.

Louisa considered how to explain Leah's new…condition in a way that wouldn't make her sound like she'd lost her marbles. And, more importantly, how to do so without revealing the supernatural world to the uninitiated humans. The problem was compounded by the fact that she wasn't entirely sure who knew what or how much. As a council member, Mr Clearwater was safe, but how much of this knowledge had he shared with his wife? Billy Black, who had just been wheeled into the cramped kitchen by Chief Swan, also knew about the paranormal. But as for the Chief himself…

"Leah's a werewolf," Sam blurted out.

What a fucking narc.

Her gaze flicked from face to face, gauging the adults' reactions. There was confusion and shock, but there was a marked difference between Mr Black's and Clearwater's expressions and those of Mrs Clearwater and Chief Swan. Whilst the latter two looked at Sam as if he'd grown a second head, the two council members' expressions were tinged with incredulity rather than outright disbelief. After all, as far as they knew, women couldn't change into wolves.

"That's not possible," Mr Clearwater said, his voice faint.

"I know what I saw. Tell them, Louisa," Sam snapped, turning to face her.

Louisa tried not to squirm when the scrutiny fell on her. Unable to meet the adults' questioning gazes, she pulled the tissue away from her nose and inspected it, relieved to see the bleeding had stopped for the moment.

"It was dark," she said at last.

"We saw—"

"A wolf, yes," Louisa finished. She glanced up at him and immediately wished she hadn't. There was a desperate, panicked look in his wide brown eyes, and guilt squirmed in the pit of her stomach as she spoke her next words. "But it wasn't…Leah's not a werewolf, Sam."

Despite this technically being the truth, she still felt like she was gaslighting him.

Sam's face twisted in betrayal. "Louisa, you saw her…" He turned to Leah, who had remained suspiciously quiet throughout the conversation. "Lee, tell them!"

Leah refused to look at him. She pulled the blanket her mother had draped around her shoulders closer to her body and shook her head.

Sam whipped his head between her and Louisa, panting heavily. "I know what I saw!" He insisted before jabbing an accusing finger at Louisa. "And you knew she was! You knew how to—"

"Sam, stop," Louisa snapped, watching uneasily as Mr Clearwater's face grew more gray by the second.

"Why are you lying?" He asked, his voice breaking with hurt. He spared one last look at everyone in the room, his eyes lingering on Leah the longest. When Leah refused to meet his gaze, Sam let out a shaky, gasping breath as if he were trying desperately not to cry. Leaping to his feet, he crossed the kitchen, wrenched open the door, and stormed outside.

Ignoring how the room pulsed and spun, Louisa rose and followed. The assembled search team she had seen earlier had dispersed, and no one, save the few council members that lingered on the front porch, was around to witness Louisa follow Sam out into the torrential downpour. She gasped as the icy water pelted her bare skin and wormed its way beneath Chief Swan's borrowed coat. The rain was so cold it was almost painful, and yet…

Her senses, which had been so inflamed, dulled, and the sharp pain behind her left ear lessened. It was as if the rain was washing away the memories that were attempting to latch onto her skin—which sounded like poetic nonsense and pseudoscience, but she also had magical powers, so who knew what really was happening. Either way, it centered her enough to pick up her speed.

"Sam, stop!"

He hadn't made it very far, but she had to yell to be heard over the rain, which fell in heavy, icy sheets. Mud oozed into her shoes as she chased him across the yard, catching his wrist and dragging him to a halt.

Ripping himself from her grasp, Sam spun around, and Louisa flinched. Sam was always so soft and gentle and kind; the hurt and angry expression that twisted his features looked alien on his face.

"Why didn't you—"

"You can't go around running your mouth off like that," Louisa snapped.

"But Leah—"

"Can turn into a wolf, yes," she said.

Relief flashed in his eyes, only to be smothered by hurt a moment later. "Why didn't you say that in there?"

"Sam," she said, stepping closer and taking his arm, relieved when he didn't pull away. "Use your head. Leah can turn into a wolf. I know you're in shock, but you can't go around screaming that to whoever you meet."

"What's going on?" He pleaded, his voice strained with emotion. "I don't understand."

A wave of anxiety began to bubble in the pit of her stomach as she debated what she could tell him. Whilst she wasn't sure where the Volturi's jurisdiction ended with the supernatural, Louisa wasn't willing to risk her life or Jasper's by giving Sam too much information. But she had to tell him something.

"I don't know all of the details," she admitted. "And I'm not sure how much I can say—"

"How about all of it?"

"Sam," she snapped, tightening her grip on his arm and giving it a little shake. "Right now, you are wading into dangerous waters. I'm not doing this to hurt your feelings. I'm trying to protect you."

"I don't need protecting!"

"Yes, you do!" She said, raising her voice to match his. Gritting her teeth, she stepped closer and hissed. "The supernatural isn't something to mess with. Your knowledge can get you and everyone you love killed. Is that what you want?" When he didn't respond, she shook his arm again. "Is it?"

She knew she was being cruel. It wasn't fair to manipulate him like this, but what other choice did she have? As harsh as her words may be, they weren't lies. Louisa herself had only dipped her toes into the supernatural world, and already she knew it was a dangerous and unforgiving place. If she could shelter Sam from it, she'd do it in a heartbeat.

Sam stared down at her. The lenses of his glasses were streaked from the rain, and his lips trembled as if he wanted to say something but couldn't find the words.

"All right. Break it up, you two."

Louisa had been so focused on Sam that she hadn't noticed Chief Swan's approach. When he reached them, he placed a hand on each of their shoulders and gently pushed them apart.

"Now, I don't know what's going on, but—"

"It's fine, Chief Swan," Louisa said. She stepped backwards and released Sam's arm, although she didn't break eye contact. "I was just leaving."

Her words sparked something in Sam, and he swelled in indignation.

"Think about what I said, Sam," Louisa said before he could protest. "Please."

He didn't respond, but he didn't try to stop her from leaving. In fact, it was Chief Swan who considered her with pursed lips.

"Are you able to drive, Louisa?" Chief Swan asked. "Your nose…"

Confused, Louisa touched her hand to face. Despite the lack of light, she caught a glimpse of blood on her fingertips before the heavy rain washed it away. Odd. She thought it had stopped.

"I'll be fine. I get them all the time," Louisa reassured him with a smile.

Judging by Chief Swan's alarmed expression, her words didn't have the intended effect.

Louisa backed away before he could gather his senses and try to stop her. "Have Leah call me when she feels better," she told Sam. At his stiff nod, Louisa quickly hurried to her car.

The vinyl seat of her car stuck uncomfortably to her skin as she settled herself behind the wheel. Despite what Louisa had said, she wasn't sure she could drive. Still, what choice did she have? She had to get home somehow, and she didn't want to leave her car at the Clearwaters' house.

After clipping her safety belt, Louisa took a moment to peel off the soaked jacket she had borrowed from Chief Swan. She regretted the loss of what little warmth it offered her, but Chief Swan's memories had begun to prickle at the edge of her consciousness. Now that she was out of the rain, her vision began to swim once more, and it took her several tries before she managed to start the car. Taking a deep, calming breath, Louisa turned onto the dirt road.

Every tiny bump felt like a catastrophic earthquake as Louisa drove out of La Push, and it took every bit of willpower she possessed not to empty the contents of her stomach. Her vision began to distort as the minutes passed, and objects grew and shrunk, appearing inches from her nose before seeming to zoom several dozen meters away before she could blink. The effect was made all the more sinister and terrifying by the illumination of her car's headlights.

She was shaking by the time she reached the La Push border. She pulled over to the side of the road and dove for her handbag. Dumping its contents on her front seat, she grabbed her mobile and attempted to call someone, anyone Jasper was hunting could she even reach him her Dad couldn't see her like this and oh God she couldn't read the screen why was it so far away and—

"Hey, Siri," she breathed. "Call 'Cullen House.'" Her voice was so faint that she had to repeat the command twice for her mobile to hear her. She let out a little sob of relief when she heard Carlisle's gentle voice on the other end of the line.

"Something is wrong. I'm covered in blood, and I don't know what to do," she said in lieu of a greeting. Words continued to pour out of her mouth, although she had no control over what she was saying. It was an incoherent mix of secrets she shouldn't possess and information she wanted to convey.

"Louisa, where are you?" Carlisle asked, interrupting Louisa's stream of word salad.

In a car in a boat in the woods on a lake at the station—

"It's alright, Louisa," Carlisle said, interrupting her before she could respond (or had she already responded?). "Emmett's tracking your phone. I'll come and get you."

"Thank you," she gasped.

Emmett stayed on the phone with her for the two minutes it took Carlisle to reach her. He spoke to her in a slow, calming tone that one might adopt with a wounded animal.

"Leah's turned into a wolf," she managed to say.

"I know, you told me."

She had? When? Did he believe her? Or was he trying to pacify her? "I'm not crazy. She turned into a wolf. Carlisle said only men could."

"Let Carlisle deal with it, Louisa," Emmett said firmly. "This isn't for us to stick our noses in."

Louisa was good at sticking her nose in things, but she promised him that she'd try her best. "I sent Jasper hunting."

Emmett didn't question the non-sequitur. "We know. Alice went to look for him. She'll bring him to you."

Louisa felt unbelievably selfish that the words brought her so much relief. "I'm covered in blood."

"Whose is it?"

The question was conversational, as if these sorts of calls home were completely normal. She supposed, for a family of vampires, they were. Louisa couldn't decide if this realization was comforting or unsettling. "Just mine."

Emmett hummed in a way that didn't tell her how he felt about her answer.

She didn't see Carlisle arrive, but one moment, she was staring out at the dark road, and the next, she was facing him, his golden hair plastered to his forehead. He opened the driver's side door and reached across to unfasten her safety belt.

"I'm going to take you back to our house," Carlisle said. "Would you like me to drive?"

It wasn't really a question, but Louisa appreciated that he asked her nonetheless. With Carlisle's help, she arranged herself in the passenger seat. At least, she assumed he assisted her. She had no memory of it happening. She also didn't remember hanging up on Emmett, but Carlisle insisted that had happened, too.

"Sorry for being a problem," Louisa said.

"With the trouble my children get up to, you could be much worse," Carlisle informed her with a wry smile. "For instance, you could be pregnant."

Despite the splitting headache, her fractured vision, and the memories attempted to sneak into her skull, Louisa managed a small laugh. Only to stop.

… No.

She tried to count mentally, and when her brain was too scrambled to do that, she used her fingers. It had been nearly three months since she last had her period.

"Carlisle, we may have more than one problem."

No Stone Left Unturned

Louisa was not pregnant. Apparently, pregnancy hormones smelled awful to vampires (a defence mechanism, Carlisle explained), and any of the Cullens would've noticed. She was, however, nearly two stone underweight, which Carlisle discovered when he had to calculate what dosage of medicine to give her to lower her blood pressure, which apparently was so high she was in danger of stroking out.

"You'll need an MRI," he informed her as she sat on the exam table in his office. His fingers flew across his laptop, updating her patient file and ordering the necessary medical tests. "You have an appointment tomorrow morning at eight."

"So soon?" Louisa asked. Whatever drugs Carlisle had given her had begun to take effect, lessening her headache enough for her to hold a coherent conversation. Her nose was still dripping blood steadily, though, despite Carlisle's attempt to cauterize any broken capillaries in her nostrils. "Doesn't it take forever to get in?"

"This takes priority over someone's sprained ankle," Carlisle said. "I'm considering admitting you to hospital in the meantime."

"Isn't that a bit…"

"No," he said firmly, cutting her off. "This isn't an overreaction. I don't think you understand how serious this is, Louisa."

Louisa pressed her lips together as she took in Carlisle's pinched expression. "It's my hippocampi, isn't it? It's growing again."

"It could be," he agreed. He leaned back in his chair and regarded her thoughtfully. "Although with your symptoms, I will need to rule out other illnesses."

Her lips twisted into a frown. "Other illnesses?"

"You've lost twenty-three pounds since August, Louisa—weight you already couldn't afford to lose." His words weren't unkind or without empathy, but their bluntness made her stomach clench.

"Jasper has me on this exercise regimen—"

"Which I helped him develop, as well as the strict diet you're following. Some weight fluctuation is to be expected. Losing sixteen per cent of your body weight is not. And then there's your arm. It's been three months, and it's still not healed. Combined with the weight loss and amenorrhea …

"The human body is fascinating; it will do whatever it can to keep you alive. Sometimes, this means it has to burn extra calories to keep you moving. Sometimes, this means it has to divert resources necessary for healing a broken bone to do this." He nodded towards the grungy cast that encased the lower half of her left arm. "For whatever reason, your body has decided it is in distress. Your symptoms could very well be caused by the growth of your hippocampi. Still, as your physician, it would be negligent of me not to rule out other diseases."

"It's my psychometry, isn't it?" It wasn't really a question, even if she phrased it as one. Even with how poorly she felt, Louisa could read between the lines. Whilst Carlisle was blaming her symptoms on her pesky hippocampi, the only reason her brain was out of control was because of her gift. "You think it's making me sick."

It suddenly occurred to Louisa that she wasn't sure which was worse—that her symptoms were caused by a serious illness or might be caused by her psychometry. If it was the former, at least there was something Carlisle could do about it. Try as Carlisle and Eleazar might, they had no idea how her power worked. If her power was going wonky, there was little, if anything, anyone could do about it.

"When it comes to the paranormal," Carlisle said slowly, looking every bit his three-hundred and sixty-five years, "I'm afraid anything is possible."

Even before she knew she had a supernatural power, everyone had always told her she had a gift. And as inconvenient as it could be, part of her had always agreed with them. It wasn't vanity to say what she could do was incredible. So how could something that was supposed to be a good thing hurt her so much?

She shuddered and hugged herself, wishing it was Jasper's arms around her body instead. As much as she knew he needed to hunt, part of her was selfishly glad Alice had gone to find him. She didn't want to deal with this on her own.

As if on cue, Carlisle sighed and stood from his desk. She thought he might comfort her, but he walked right past her instead. Unlatching one of the giant windows on the far side of the room, he stepped aside just in time for Jasper to vault through the opening.

Her boyfriend crossed the room with supernatural speed, materialising in front of her before she even had time to blink. His blond hair hung in thick clumps of rain-soaked curls, and his clothes were splattered with mud. Still, his feral appearance did nothing to detract from his beauty, nor did the scowl that twisted his face. His hands were ice cold as they cradled her head, his thumbs stroking her cheekbones.

"Why is she still bleeding?" Jasper snapped at Carlisle, his harsh tone at odds with the gentleness that attended her.

Carlisle rattled off a list of fancy medical terminology that boiled down to 'her blood pressure is through the roof.' Once it was established how sick she was, the two began to discuss treatment options in low voices.

Under normal circumstances, Louisa hated it when Carlisle deferred to Jasper regarding her medical needs—she wasn't a child who couldn't speak for herself. But today, with its emotional upheavals and physical exertions, plus whatever drugs Carlisle had provided her, she was rather relieved that someone else could make decisions. Jasper, she knew, would ensure she was taken care of and that it would be done in a way she would choose for herself. Her feelings were justified when Jasper managed to convince Carlisle not to admit her to hospital.

"She'll be more relaxed at home," he explained when Carlisle attempted to argue. "And if it's her gift that's causing her symptoms, she'll find no peace in a hospital." Carlisle relented only when Jasper agreed he would periodically be allowed to assess her vitals.

Without further discussion, Jasper swept Louisa into his arms and carried her out of Carlisle's office—something he rarely did, what with her fear of heights. Before Louisa had time to react, he placed her down again, this time in the bathroom he shared with Alice. The shower was already running, and when Louisa stuck her hand in, she found it the perfect temperature—one of Alice's machinations, she assumed.

"Where is the dress you were wearing?" Jasper asked as he helped her peel off her blood-stained clothing.

"Leah has it. Her clothes didn't survive the human-to-wolf-to-human transformation."

Jasper hummed in understanding, and a comfortable silence fell between them as Louisa attempted to scrub away the caked mud, blood, and grime. Beside her, Jasper was attempting to do the same to his own body, although he paused to help her wash her hair. Louisa thought she might've fallen in love with Jasper all over again for that alone.

The water felt divine on her skin and dulled the foreign memories that attempted to burrow into her brain. It reminded her of earlier in the rain, except infinitely more pleasant, considering the water wasn't a few degrees above freezing. It was a curious phenomenon and one she wanted to explore further. Although preferably when she didn't feel like she had been hit by a bus.

When she was clean, Jasper helped her dress in sweatpants and a long-sleeved shirt she had never seen before. Although they had clearly been washed, neither garment had been worn before, evident by the absence of pilling. Even if the clothes weren't ridiculously expensive (like most of the Cullens' wardrobes), they were the most comfortable thing she owned, simply from the lack of memories imprinted in the new fabric. Alice must have purchased them for a moment exactly like this, Louisa realised. She resolved to thank her in the morning.

Jasper led her into his room and helped her into bed. After wrapping her in a quilt (which wasn't new, but felt like Jasper), her boyfriend sat behind her and began to brush the snarls out of her wet hair. They sat in silence for a long time, and Louisa slipped into her mental library, hoping to organise her chaotic thoughts—a task that quickly proved herculean.

It was as if someone had dumped the entire Library of Congress onto the floor of her mental library. Everywhere she looked, photographs and oil paintings, crumpled-up bits of paper and carefully preserved love letters littered her mind—the metaphysical manifestation of the information her brain had collected in the span of a few hours. Never, in all her years of organising her mind, had her library looked like this.

"…Take my hand. Take my whole life too…"

Louis glanced down at her foot, beneath which lay a seashell. Stooping, she picked it up, Elvis Presley's voice growing louder as she brought the shell to her ear.

In an instant, she was standing on a beach. Billy Black stood beside her, whole, healthy, and twenty years younger. In the distance, she could see the cliff she had jumped off with Dottie and in front of her, a blonde woman in a long, lacy white dress was stumbling across the rocky ground of First Beach. Charlie had never thought Renee had looked so beautiful.

With a gasp, Louisa wrenched herself from the memory of Chief Swan's wedding and opened her eyes.

"Jasper?" Louisa said, reaching down to grab his thighs.

"I'm right here, my love," he murmured, putting down the hairbrush and pressing a kiss to the back of her neck.

"I'm—" scared confused sad angry—

"I know," he whispered, understanding the mess of feelings she couldn't articulate but desperately wanted to say. "I know."

Louisa twisted around as best she could from the cocoon of her quilt and pressed her forehead to Jasper's. He didn't try to ease her turbulent emotions but patiently waited for her to explain herself. She knew he wouldn't be pleased with what she had to say, but she wasn't sure what other option they had.

Just that quick peek into her mental library had proved to her that there was something wrong with her, and her psychometry was to blame. There was absolutely no reason for her to have as much information as she did, and she suspected that the practice that Eleazar had made her do to strengthen her gift was beginning to work against her. This wasn't something she could handle, and Carlisle had all but said he was clueless as well. Which meant there was only one option.

"I think it's time to call the Volturi."

"Sometimes, loyalty gets in the way of what you want to do. Sometimes, it's not your secret to tell." ― Stephenie Meyer

A/N: Sorry about the cliffhanger in hanger last chapter! I had planned for this chapter to go out months ago, but every draft I had, I ended up hating. I was also asked after last chapter if there will be imprinting in this story, and the answer to that is... One of my biggest gripes in canon is actually how imprinting is portrayed. I actually almost removed the wolves entirely from this story because of it. Imprinting is something done by animals, and I don't think it's a cute look for SMeyer to have a group of indigenous people being compared to animals. Imprinting, as we see in canon, was repurposed to the mating bond in this story. So, Leah and Sam are very much a couple, and I have no plans to change that in the future!

As for imprinting in this story... well. You'll just have to wait and see about that ;)